more or less frequently, and for two days and
nights he neither ate nor spoke. The Tombs cells are built of thick
stone, entered through a heavy iron door, that is provided with a small
grating. Tulitz's cell was on the second tier. Around this tier extends
a narrow gallery, along which the guard walks every now and then, to
see that all is as it should be. The guard annoyed Tulitz. Every time he
passed he would peer in and give a sort of grunt. This became painfully
exasperating to the Baron.

[Illustration: "FI' TOUSANT TOLLAIRE! VY YOU NOT MAKE HIM A HUNTRET
TOUSANT?"]

Late in the afternoon of the second day of his imprisonment, Tulitz,
desperate with hunger, rage, and despair, sat down upon the stool in his
cell and glared viciously at the grating. The guard's face was there.

"Ha!" cried Tulitz, in a shrill voice, "keep avay! You tink I von tam
mouse, and you ze cat, hey? You sit outside ze cage viz your claw out
and your tail stiff, ready to pounce on ze mouse. _Mon Dieu!_ How I
hate!"

The guard unlocked the iron door and stepped inside. "Don't make sech a
racket over nawthin'," he said. "De warden says yer gotter do some
eatin'."

"I kill ze warden if he keep not his _mechant chute_!"

"Wotcher goin' ter do? Starve?"

"If I choose starve, how you prevent him, hey? How make you me eat?
_Voila, bete!_" Tulitz drew himself to his full height, turned up his
shirt-sleeves and bared his great, muscular arm.

"Oh, all right," said the guard. "It's all one to me. Starve if yer
wanter. I'm agreeable."

"I vant notting, _rien, rien_!" said Tulitz. "I vant to be leave alone."

"Dat aint much. Mos' people wat comes here is more graspin'. Mos' people
wants ter git out."

"Ha!" said Tulitz.

"De warden said fer me ter come in here an' tell yer' he'd send fer
anybody yer wanter see."

"Zere is nopotty."

"Aincher got no friends?"

"Ven I haf money, I have friend--_beaucoup_, more friend as I know vat
to do viz. I haf no money now."

"Wot's your bail?"

"Fi' tousant tollaire! Bah! Vat is fi' tousant tollaire? Many time I
spend him viz no more care as I light my cigar. A bagatelle! But," and
he added this with a curiously grim expression, "I haf no bagatelle
to-day."

The guard sidled up to Tulitz and whispered in his ear, "What'll yer
gimme if I gitcher a bondsman?"

"Ha!" said Tulitz, "you haf ze man?"

"I knows a man," replied the guard reflectively, "who might do it on my
recommend. Sometimes, w