ity; nor did he offer any comment on my get-up. I
often affected a disguise in those days, even when I was not engaged
in business, and the dress and get-up of a respectable commissionnaire
was a favourite one with me. As soon as I had changed I sent him out
to make purchases for our luncheon--five sous' worth of stale bread,
and ten sous' worth of liver sausage, of which he was inordinately
fond. He would take the opportunity on the way of getting moderately
drunk on as many glasses of absinthe as he could afford. I saw him go
out of the outer door, and then I set to work to examine the precious
document.

Well, one glance was sufficient for me to realize its incalculable
value! Nothing more or less than a Treaty of Alliance between King
Louis XVIII of France and the King of Prussia in connexion with
certain schemes of naval construction. I did not understand the whole
diplomatic verbiage, but it was pretty clear to my unsophisticated
mind that this treaty had been entered into in secret by the two
monarchs, and that it was intended to prejudice the interests both of
Denmark and of Russia in the Baltic Sea.

I also realized that both the Governments of Denmark and Russia would
no doubt pay a very considerable sum for the merest glance at this
document, and that my client of this morning was certainly a secret
service agent--otherwise a spy--of one of those two countries, who
did not choose to take the very severe risks which I had taken this
morning, but who would, on the other hand, reap the full reward of the
daring coup, whilst I was to be content with four hundred francs!

Now, I am a man of deliberation as well as of action, and at this
juncture--feeling that Theodore was still safely out of the way--I
thought the whole matter over quietly, and then took what precautions
I thought fit for the furthering of my own interests.

To begin with, I set to work to make a copy of the treaty on my own
account. I have brought the study of calligraphy to a magnificent
degree of perfection, and the writing on the document was easy enough
to imitate, as was also the signature of our gracious King Louis and
of M. de Talleyrand, who had countersigned it.

If you remember, I had picked up two or three loose sheets of paper
off M. de Marsan's desk; these bore the arms of the Chancellerie of
Foreign Affairs stamped upon them, and were in every way identical
with that on which the original document had been drafted. When I had