rancs! A round sum! If I gave Theodore five hundred
the sum would at once appear meagre, unimportant. Four thousand five
hundred francs!--it did not even _sound_ well to my mind.

So I took care that Theodore vanished from my mental vision as
completely as he had done for the last two days from my ken, and as
there was nothing more that could be done that evening, I turned my
weary footsteps toward my lodgings at Passy.

All that night, Sir, I lay wakeful and tossing in my bed, alternately
fuming and rejecting plans for the attainment of that golden goal--the
recovery of Mme. de Nole's pet dog. And the whole of the next day I
spent in vain quest. I visited every haunt of ill-fame known to me
within the city. I walked about with a pistol in my belt, a hunk of
bread and cheese in my pocket, and slowly growing despair in my heart.

In the evening Mme. la Comtesse de Nole called for news of Carissimo,
and I could give her none. She cried, Sir, and implored, and her tears
and entreaties got on to my nerves until I felt ready to fall into
hysterics. One more day and all my chances of a bright and wealthy
future would have vanished. Unless the money was forthcoming on the
morrow, the dog would be destroyed, and with him my every hope of that
five thousand francs. And though she still irradiated charm and luxury
from her entire lovely person, I begged her not to come to the office
again, and promised that as soon as I had any news to impart I would
at once present myself at her house in the Faubourg St. Germain.

That night I never slept one wink. Think of it, Sir! The next few
hours were destined to see me either a prosperous man for many days to
come, or a miserable, helpless, disappointed wretch. At eight o'clock
I was at my office. Still no news of Theodore. I could now no longer
dismiss him from my mind. Something had happened to him, I could have
no doubt. This anxiety, added to the other more serious one, drove me
to a state bordering on frenzy. I hardly knew what I was doing. I
wandered all day up and down the Quai Voltaire, and the Quai des
Grands Augustins, and in and around the tortuous streets till I was
dog-tired, distracted, half crazy.

I went to the Morgue, thinking to find there Theodore's dead body, and
found myself vaguely looking for the mutilated corpse of Carissimo.
Indeed, after a while Theodore and Carissimo became so inextricably
mixed up in my mind that I could not have told you if I was seeking
f