be put in
such a place, and asked if he might come the next day and move it again.
Derues replied that someone was coming for it that very day. This
question, and the disgraceful scene which the man had witnessed, made it
necessary to get rid of him without letting him see the pit dug under the
staircase. Derues tried to drag the chest towards the hole, but all his
strength was insufficient to move it. He uttered terrible imprecations
when he recognised his own weakness, and saw that he would be obliged to
bring another stranger, an informer perhaps, into this charnel-house,
where; as yet, nothing betrayed his crimes. No sooner escaped from one
peril than he encountered another, and already he had to struggle against
his own deeds. He measured the length of the trench, it was too short.
Derues went out and repaired to the place where he had hired the labourer
who had dug it out, but he could not find the man, whom he had only seen
once, and whose name he did not know. Two whole days were spent in this
fruitless search, but on the third, as he was wandering on one of the
quays at the time labourers were to be found there, a mason, thinking he
was looking for someone, inquired what he wanted. Derues looked well at
the man, and concluding from his appearance that he was probably rather
simpleminded, asked--

"Would you like to earn a crown of three livres by an easy job?"

"What a question, master!" answered the mason. "Work is so scarce that I
am going back into the country this very evening."

"Very well! Bring your tools, spade, and pickaxe, and follow me."

They both went down to the cellar, and the mason was ordered to dig out
the pit till it was five and a half feet deep. While the man worked,
Derues sat beside the chest and read. When it was half done, the mason
stopped for breath, and leaning on his spade, inquired why he wanted a
trench of such a depth. Derues, who had probably foreseen the question,
answered at once, without being disconcerted--

"I want to bury some bottled wine which is contained in this case."

"Wine!" said the other. "Ah! you are laughing at me, because you think
I look a fool! I never yet heard of such a recipe for improving wine."

"Where do you come from?"

"D'Alencon."

"Cider drinker! You were brought up in Normandy, that is clear. Well,
you can learn from me, Jean-Baptiste Ducoudray, a wine grower of Tours,
and a wine merchant for the last ten years, that new wi