not followed this
smuggling case at all closely: he was surprised, therefore, to see
Mother Toulouche in the little passage adjoining the court, for he had
the impression that the old receiver of stolen goods had been under lock
and key for some weeks.... She was now being interviewed by one of his
colleagues. Fandor went up to them.

Though she had not been accused of anything so far, the old storekeeper
was vehemently protesting her innocence.

"Yes," she declared to her interviewer, "it is abominable, when such
things are discovered all of a sudden!"

Mother Toulouche went on to explain that on Clock Quay she rented a
small shop for the sale of curiosities: that she was an honest woman,
who had never wronged a soul by as much as a farthing: all she asked was
to be left in peace to earn a decent living, so that she could retire
from business some day or other.... Everyone had a right to ask as much
as that!... Her store consisted of two rooms and an underground cellar,
in which she had put a quantity of old odds and ends, when she had moved
to her present abode.... She never descended to this cellar, never at
all: she was far too much afraid of rats to venture down there! Not she!
But, one day, if you please, when she was quietly engaged in mending
some old clothes, the police had suddenly burst into her store!... And
they had accused her of receiving smuggled goods and false money, and
she didn't know what more besides!...

The police, not content with this, had made her go down to the cellar to
find out whether or no there were such things in the second cellar
belonging to her store!... Who had been most surprised then? Why who but
Mother Toulouche, who, until that very minute, had not known that this
second cellar existed! How then was she to know that it communicated
with the sewer, still less that the sewer opened on to the Seine, and
that by the Seine arrived bales of smuggled goods, which were concealed
in her cellar by the smugglers?... Fortunately, the judges had
understood this, and after twenty-four hours' detention on suspicion,
Mother Toulouche had been set at liberty!

At first, she had declared that she did not know the accused persons
summoned to appear that day, the Cooper in particular; to tell the
truth, she had made a mistake; she did know them, through having met
them a long time ago, when she lived near la Capelle; so long ago was it
that she had forgotten all about it! Anyhow, she wanted to