such small comfort, that he was entirely hopeless after
his examination, and this simple expedient had been quite overlooked by
these prison-ridden minds. This semblance of a hope almost stupefied his
brain.

"Have Ruffard and Godet had their spree yet? Have they forked out any of
the yellow boys?" asked Jacques Collin.

"They dare not," replied la Pouraille. "The wretches are waiting till
I am turned off. That is what my moll sent me word by la Biffe when she
came to see le Biffon."

"Very well; we will have their whack of money in twenty-four hours,"
said Jacques Collin. "Then the blackguards cannot pay up, as you will;
you will come out as white as snow, and they will be red with all that
blood! By my kind offices you will seem a good sort of fellow led away
by them. I shall have money enough of yours to prove alibis on the other
counts, and when you are back on the hulks--for you are bound to go
there--you must see about escaping. It is a dog's life, still it is
life!"

La Pouraille's eyes glittered with suppressed delirium.

"With seven hundred thousand francs you can get a good many drinks,"
said Jacques Collin, making his pal quite drunk with hope.

"Ay, ay, boss!"

"I can bamboozle the Minister of Justice.--Ah, ha! Ruffard will shell
out to do for a reeler. Bibi-Lupin is fairly gulled!"

"Very good, it is a bargain," said la Pouraille with savage glee. "You
order, and I obey."

And he hugged Jacques Collin in his arms, while tears of joy stood in
his eyes, so hopeful did he feel of saving his head.

"That is not all," said Jacques Collin; "the public prosecutor does not
swallow everything, you know, especially when a new count is entered
against you. The next thing is to bring a moll into the case by blowing
the gaff."

"But how, and what for?"

"Do as I bid you; you will see." And _Trompe-la-Mort_ briefly told the
secret of the Nanterre murders, showing him how necessary it was to find
a woman who would pretend to be Ginetta. Then he and la Pouraille, now
in good spirits, went across to le Biffon.

"I know how sweet you are on la Biffe," said Jacques Collin to this man.

The expression in le Biffon's eyes was a horrible poem.

"What will she do while you are on the hulks?"

A tear sparkled in le Biffon's fierce eyes.

"Well, suppose I were to get her lodgings in the Lorcefe des Largues"
(the women's La Force, i. e. les Madelonnettes or Saint-Lazare) "for a
stretch, allowing that time for