d sort!... But yesterday I had word
from her.... Bobinette asked me to meet her."...

"You told her to come here?"

"Sure!"

"And how did she know your address?"

Hogshead Geoffrey scratched his big head.

"Lordy! I don't know!... Probably she saw my name quoted the other day
in the _Petit Journal_, among the conquerors in the Who's Strongest
Competition. She wrote putting the number of my old shanty, rue de la
Harpe!... No good being astonished at what she does!... I tell you she
has education--she has!"...

It was half an hour after midnight. The owner of _The Crying Calf_
shouted in a stentorian voice:

"Now, boys! It's only seven sous drinks now!"

It was the accustomed warning, taken as a matter of course.

Protesting in a squeaky voice that his constitution was weakly, that
his doctor had ordered him not to sit up late, the Scrub, who feared a
meeting with Bobinette, knowing she had little liking for him, now
took himself off.

Geoffrey ordered two drinks. He was bored. Bobinette was behind her
promised time. He would have left, but Bobinette would pay for his
drinks--a nice little total!

At last she appeared: an out-of-breath Bobinette, and somewhat
flustered.

She was quietly dressed--almost shabby. This was no place for one of
the elegant toilettes affected by Mademoiselle de Naarboveck's
companion!... After her Rouen journey, after her meeting with
Lieutenant de Loubersac in the train, she had thought it wiser not to
go back to the baron's house. She had written to say she was ill. Then
she had taken refuge in a quiet little inn in la Chapelle
neighbourhood, there to await events.

Vagualame's arrest had made a terrible impression on her.... Vagualame
had not betrayed her; but she sensed snares, pitfalls all about her:
she might be trapped any minute: she must disappear! After Vagualame's
arrest she had had but one idea: to get rid of the gun piece, hand it
to the foreign power, and receive the promised reward.... When,
instead of Corporal Vinson, whom she had summoned in accordance with
her orders, she had perceived Fandor, she was puzzled, suspicious.

If Bobinette went to the meeting place in her own undisguised person,
and met Fandor as Fandor, it was because she had had the same idea as
the journalist.

"I will walk through the arcades as Bobinette, and I shall see if
Corporal Vinson is there, or if, by chance, he is not alone!"

That same day at Rouen she had had a bad shock. The t