had not been made
for him.

Here a short digression becomes necessary.

There was in Paris at that epoch, in a low-lived old lodging in the Rue
Beautreillis, near the Arsenal, an ingenious Jew whose profession was
to change villains into honest men. Not for too long, which might have
proved embarrassing for the villain. The change was on sight, for a day
or two, at the rate of thirty sous a day, by means of a costume which
resembled the honesty of the world in general as nearly as possible.
This costumer was called "the Changer"; the pickpockets of Paris
had given him this name and knew him by no other. He had a tolerably
complete wardrobe. The rags with which he tricked out people were almost
probable. He had specialties and categories; on each nail of his
shop hung a social status, threadbare and worn; here the suit of a
magistrate, there the outfit of a Cure, beyond the outfit of a banker,
in one corner the costume of a retired military man, elsewhere
the habiliments of a man of letters, and further on the dress of a
statesman.

This creature was the costumer of the immense drama which knavery plays
in Paris. His lair was the green-room whence theft emerged, and into
which roguery retreated. A tattered knave arrived at this dressing-room,
deposited his thirty sous and selected, according to the part which
he wished to play, the costume which suited him, and on descending the
stairs once more, the knave was a somebody. On the following day, the
clothes were faithfully returned, and the Changer, who trusted the
thieves with everything, was never robbed. There was one inconvenience
about these clothes, they "did not fit"; not having been made for those
who wore them, they were too tight for one, too loose for another and
did not adjust themselves to any one. Every pickpocket who exceeded or
fell short of the human average was ill at his ease in the Changer's
costumes. It was necessary that one should not be either too fat or
too lean. The changer had foreseen only ordinary men. He had taken the
measure of the species from the first rascal who came to hand, who is
neither stout nor thin, neither tall nor short. Hence adaptations which
were sometimes difficult and from which the Changer's clients extricated
themselves as best they might. So much the worse for the exceptions!
The suit of the statesman, for instance, black from head to foot, and
consequently proper, would have been too large for Pitt and too small
for