Don Giovanni."

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

NUMBER TWO HUNDRED AND SEVEN.

Mueller, when he so confidently proposed to visit Bras de Fer in his
future retirement at Toulon, believed that he had only to lodge his
information with the proper authorities, and see the whole affair
settled out of hand. He had not taken the bureaucratic system into
consideration; and he had forgotten how little positive evidence he had
to offer. It was no easier then than now to inspire the official mind
with either insight or decision; and the police of Paris, inasmuch as
they in no wise differed from the police of to-day, yesterday, or
to-morrow, were slow to understand, slow to believe, and slower still
to act.

An escaped convict? Monsieur le Chef du Bureau, upon whom we took the
liberty of waiting the next morning, could scarcely take in the bare
possibility of such a fact. An escaped convict? Bah! no convict could
possibly escape under the present admirable system. _Comment_! He
effected his escape some years ago? How many years ago? In what yard, in
what ward, under what number was he entered in the official books? For
what offence was he convicted? Had Monsieur seen him at Toulon?--and was
Monsieur prepared to swear that Lenoir and Bras de Fer were one and the
same person? How! Monsieur proposed to identify a certain individual,
and yet was incapable of replying to these questions! Would Monsieur be
pleased to state upon what grounds he undertook to denounce the said
individual, and what proof he was prepared to produce in confirmation
of the same?

To all which official catechizing, Mueller, who (wanting Guichet's
testimony) had nothing but his intense personal conviction to put
forward, could only reply that he was ready to pledge himself to the
accuracy of his information; and that if Monsieur the Chef du Bureau
would be at the pains to call in any Toulon official of a few years'
standing, he would undoubtedly find that the person now described as
calling himself Lenoir, and the person commonly known in the Bagnes as
Bras de Fer, were indeed "one and the same."

Whereupon Monsieur le Chef--a pompous personage, with a bald head and a
white moustache--shrugged his shoulders, smiled incredulously, had the
honor to point out to Monsieur that the Government could by no means be
at the expense of conveying an inspector from Toulon to Paris on so
shadowy and unsupported a statement, and politely bowed us out.

Thus rebuffed, Mueller be