sees
through every plot, divines what is kept hidden, knows exactly the
value of a man, the price of a conscience, and which accumulates in its
portfolios the most terrible, as well as the most shameful secrets! In
reading the memoirs of celebrated detectives, more attractive to me
than the fables of our best authors I became inspired by an enthusiastic
admiration for those men, so keen scented, so subtle, flexible as steel,
artful and penetrating, fertile in expedients, who follow crime on
the trail, armed with the law, through the rushwood of legality, as
relentlessly as the savages of Cooper pursue their enemies in the depths
of the American forests. The desire seized me to become a wheel of this
admirable machine,--a small assistance in the punishment of crime
and the triumph of innocence. I made the essay; and I found I did not
succeed too badly."

"And does this employment please you?"

"I owe to it, sir, my liveliest enjoyments. Adieu weariness! since I
have abandoned the search for books to the search for men. I shrug my
shoulders when I see a foolish fellow pay twenty-five francs for the
right of hunting a hare. What a prize! Give me the hunting of a man!
That, at least, calls the faculties into play, and the victory is not
inglorious! The game in my sport is equal to the hunter; they both
possess intelligence, strength, and cunning. The arms are nearly equal.
Ah! if people but knew the excitement of these games of hide and seek
which are played between the criminal and the detective, everybody
would be wanting employment at the office of the Rue de Jerusalem. The
misfortune is, that the art is becoming lost. Great crimes are now so
rare. The race of strong fearless criminals has given place to the mob
of vulgar pick-pockets. The few rascals who are heard of occasionally
are as cowardly as foolish. They sign their names to their misdeeds, and
even leave their cards lying about. There is no merit in catching them.
Their crime found out, you have only to go and arrest them,--"

"It seems to me, though," interrupted M. Daburon, smiling, "that our
assassin is not such a bungler."

"He, sir, is an exception; and I shall have greater delight in tracking
him. I will do everything for that, I will even compromise myself if
necessary. For I ought to confess, M. Daburon," added he, slightly
embarrassed, "that I do not boast to my friends of my exploits; I even
conceal them as carefully as possible. They would perhap