bundle of old clothes in order.

But Nibet replied:

"The Beadle has nothing whatever to do with that business.... I know
what I know about all that.... He's afraid of getting what the Cooper
got, so he keeps away. He's not far out either--you've got to be careful
these days--queer times!"

Ernestine and Mother Toulouche bewailed the Cooper's fate:

"Poor fellow! No sooner out of quod than back--only a fortnight's
liberty! And with a vile accusation fastened to him--smuggling and
coining!"

Nibet tried to relieve their minds:

"Haven't I told you," growled he, "that I'm going to get Maitre Henri
Robart to defend him? He knows how to get round juries: he'll get the
Cooper off with an easy sentence."

Nibet looked at his watch:

"It will soon be half-past two! Got to go down! The boatman will be
there before long, at the mouth of the sewer!"

Mother Toulouche, who was always in a flurry when smuggled goods were to
be unloaded in her cellars, tried to dissuade Nibet:

"You'll never be able to manage it by yourself!"

Nibet glanced at Cranajour. The warder hesitated, then said:

"Since there's no one else, couldn't I take Cranajour with me?"

At first objections were raised; there was a low-voiced discussion, so
that the simpleton might not catch what they were saying: Cranajour had
never been up to dodges of this kind: so far he had been kept out of
them; besides, he was such a senseless cove, he might give things away,
make a hash of it!

Nibet smiled:

"Why, it's just because he is such a simpleton, and because he hasn't a
mite of memory that we can use him safely!"

"That's true!" said Mother Toulouche, somewhat reassured.

She called to Cranajour:

"Come along, Cranajour, and just tell us where you dined this evening!"

The simpleton seemed to make a prodigious effort of memory, seized his
head between his hands, closed his eyes, and racked his brains: after
quite a long silence, he declared emphatically and with a distressed
air:

"Faith, I can't tell you now!"

Nibet, who had closely watched this performance, nodded:

"It's quite all right," he said.

The cellars below Mother Toulouche's store were extensive, dark, and
ill-smelling. The walls glistened with exuding damp, and the ground was
a sticky mass of foul mud, of all sorts of refuse, of putrefying matter.

Nibet, followed by his companion, made his way down to them: it was no
easy descent, for they had to climb over cases of all