low on his ingenuous countenance all
the emotions produced by the recital of the criminal, who, but for him,
would probably have escaped justice.

"Naturally," continued Crochard, "when he talked of something to do,
I opened my ears wide. 'Why,' I said, 'I thought you had retired from
business.' And I really thought he had. 'You are mistaken,' he replied.
'Since I left that place you know of, I have been living nicely. But
I have not put anything aside; and if an accident should happen to me,
which I have reason to fear, I would be destitute.'

"I should have liked very much to know more; but he would not tell me
anything else concerning himself; and I had to give him my whole history
since my release. Oh! that was soon done. I told him how nothing I had
undertaken had ever succeeded; that, finally, I had been a waiter in a
drinking-shop; that they had turned me out; and that for a month now
I had been walking the streets, having not a cent, no clothes, no
lodgings, and no bed but the quarries.

"'Since that is so,' he said, 'you shall see what a comrade is.' I ought
to say that the cab had been going all the time we were talking, and
that we were out in the suburbs now. My Chevassat raised the blind to
look out; and, as soon as he saw a clothing store, he ordered the driver
to stop there. The driver did so; and then Chevassat said to me, 'Come,
old man, we'll begin by dressing you up decently.' So we get out; and
upon my word, he buys me a shirt, trousers, a coat, and everything else
that was needful; he pays for a silk hat, and a pair of varnished
boots. Farther down the street was a watchmaker. I declare he makes me a
present of a gold watch, which I still have, and which they seized when
they put me in jail. Finally, he has spent his five hundred francs, and
gives me eighty francs to boot, to play the gentleman.

"You need not ask if I thanked him, when we got back into the cab. After
such misery as I had endured, my morals came back with my clothes. I
would have jumped into the fire for Chevassat. Alas! I would not have
been so delighted, if I had known what I should have to pay for all
this; for in the first place"--

"Oh, go on!" broke in the lawyer; "go on!"

Not without some disappointment, Crochard had to acknowledge that
everything purely personal did not seem to excite the deepest interest.
He made a face, full of spite, and then went on, speaking more
rapidly,--

"All these purchases had taken some