. My gentleman made himself most pleasant"

"No doubt," growled the Chief.

"Offered me an excellent cigar, and talked--not about the affair,
you understand--but of Paris, the theatres, the races, Longchamps,
Auteuil, the grand restaurants. He knew everything, all Paris,
like his pocket. I was much surprised, but he told me his business
often brought him here. He had been employed to follow up several
great Italian criminals, and had made a number of important
arrests in Paris."

"Get on, get on! come to the essential."

"Well, in the middle of the journey, when we were about the Pont
Henri Quatre, he said, 'Figure to yourself, my friend, that it is
now near noon, that nothing has passed my lips since before
daylight at Laroche. What say you? Could you eat a mouthful, just
a scrap on the thumb-nail? Could you?'"

"And you--greedy, gormandizing beast!--you agreed?"

"My faith, monsieur, I too was hungry. It was my regular hour.
Well--at any rate, for my sins I accepted. We entered the first
restaurant, that of the 'Reunited Friends,' you know it, perhaps,
monsieur? A good house, especially noted for tripe _a la mode de
Caen_." In spite of his anguish, Block smacked his fat lips at
the thought of this most succulent but very greasy dish.

"How often must I tell you to get on?"

"Forgive me, monsieur, but it is all part of my story. We had
oysters, two dozen Marennes, and a glass or two of Chablis; then a
good portion of tripe, and with them a bottle, only one, monsieur,
of Pontet Canet; after that a beefsteak with potatoes and a little
Burgundy, then a rum omelet."

"Great Heavens! you should be the fat man in a fair, not an agent
of the Detective Bureau."

"It was all this that helped me to my destruction. He ate, this
devilish Italian, like three, and I too, I was so hungry,--forgive
me, sir,--I did my share. But by the time we reached the cheese, a
fine, ripe Camembert, had our coffee, and one thimbleful of green
Chartreuse, I was _plein jusqu'au bec_, gorged up to the beak."

"And what of your duty, your service, pray?"

"I did think of it, monsieur, but then, he, the Italian, was just
the same as myself. He was a colleague. I had no fear of him, not
till the very last, when he played me this evil turn. I suspected
nothing when he brought out his pocketbook,--it was stuffed full,
monsieur; I saw that and my confidence increased,--called for the
reckoning, and paid with an Italian bank-note. The waiter