me this service," he said
coldly; but with a flash in his eye like the sudden glint in the eye of
a cobra di capello. "I will take care not to be unmindful of the
obligation."

Then, turning impatiently upon the sergeant:--

"Have you no carriage at hand?" he said, sharply; "or do you want to
collect a crowd in the street?"

The cab, however, which had been waiting a few doors lower down, drove
up while he was speaking. The sergeant hurried him in; the half-dozen
loiterers who had already gathered about us pressed eagerly forward; two
of the soldiers and the sergeant got inside; Mueller and I scrambled up
beside the driver; word was given "to the Prefecture of Police;" and we
drove rapidly away down the Rue du Faubourg St. Denis, through the arch
of Louis Quatorze, out upon the bright noisy Boulevard, and on through
thoroughfares as brilliant and crowded as at midday, towards the quays
and the river.

Arrived at the Quai des Ortevres, we alighted at the Prefecture, and
were conducted through a series of ante-rooms and corridors into the
presence of the same bald-headed Chef de Bureau whom we had seen on each
previous occasion. He looked up as we came in, pressed the spring of a
small bell that stood upon his desk, and growled something in the ear of
a clerk who answered the summons.

"Sergeant," he said, pompously, "bring the prisoner under the
gas-burner."

Lenoir, without waiting to be brought, took a couple of steps forward,
and placed himself in the light.

Monsieur le Chef then took out his double eye-glass, and proceeded to
compare Lenoir's face, feature by feature, with a photograph which he
took out of his pocket-book for the purpose.

"Are you prepared, Monsieur," he said, addressing Mueller for the first
time--"are you, I say, prepared to identify the prisoner upon oath?"

"Within certain limitations--yes," replied Mueller.

"Certain limitations!" exclaimed the Chef, testily. "What do you mean by
'certain limitations?' Here is the man whom you accuse, and here is the
photograph. Are you, I repeat, prepared to make your deposition before
Monsieur le Prefet that they are one and the same person?"

"I am neither more nor less prepared, Monsieur," said Mueller, "than you
are; or than Monsieur le Prefet, when he has the opportunity of judging.
As I have already had the honor of informing you, I saw the prisoner for
the first time about two months since. Having reason to believe that he
was living in P