led him into a corner of
the yard, and said to him, after a moment's silence:

"Is the affair you have failed in still good?"

"In two months as good as new."

"Can you prove it?"

"Of course."

"And what do you ask for it?"

"A hundred francs as earnest; and I will give you the word arranged with
my woman, on which she will hand you the prints, from which you can make
the false keys. And, moreover, if the thing comes off, I shall expect a
fifth share of the swag to be handed over to my woman."

"That's not unreasonable."

"As I shall know to whom she has given the prints, if I am done out of
my share I shall know whom to inform against."

"And very right, too, if you were choused; but amongst prigs and
cracksmen there's honour,--we must rely on each other, or all business
would be impossible."

Another anomaly in this horrid existence. This villain spoke the truth.
It is very seldom that thieves fail in their faith in such arrangements
as these, but they usually act with a kind of good faith,--or, rather,
that we may not prostitute the word, we will say that necessity compels
these ruffians to keep their words; for if they failed, as the companion
of the Gros-Boiteux said, "All business would be impossible." A great
number of robberies are arranged, bought, and plotted in this way in
gaol,--another pernicious result of confinement in common.

"If what you say is sure," continued Cardillac, "I can agree for the
job. There are no proofs against me, I am sure to be acquitted, and in a
fortnight I shall be out; let us add three weeks in order to turn
oneself about, to get the false keys, and lay our plans, and then in six
weeks from this--"

"You'll go to the job in the very nick of time."

"Well, then, it's a bargain."

"But how about the earnest? I must have something down."

"Here is my last button, and when I have no more,--yet there are others
left," said Cardillac, tearing off a button covered with cloth from his
ragged blue coat, and then tearing off the covering with his nails, he
showed the Gros-Boiteux that, instead of a button-mould, it contained a
piece of forty francs. "You see I can pay deposit," he added, "when the
affair is arranged."

"That's the ticket, old fellow!" said the Gros-Boiteux. "And as you are
soon going out, and have got rhino to work with, I can put you up to
another thing,--a real good go,--the cheese,--a regular affair which my
woman and myself have been cooking up, an