nduce him to share his ill-gotten spoils with
me.

I had left him snoring and strapped to the chair-bedstead, and when I
opened the office door I was marvelling in my mind whether I could
really bear to see him dying slowly of starvation with that savoury
pie tantalizingly under his nose. The crash which I had heard a few
minutes ago prepared me for a change of scene. Even so, I confess that
the sight which I beheld glued me to the threshold. There sat Theodore
at the table, finishing the last morsel of pie, whilst the
chair-bedstead lay in a tangled heap upon the floor.

I cannot tell you how nasty he was to me about the whole thing,
although I showed myself at once ready to forgive him all his lies and
his treachery, and was at great pains to explain to him how I had
given up my own bed and strapped him into it solely for the benefit of
his health, seeing that at the moment he was threatened with delirium
tremens.

He would not listen to reason or to the most elementary dictates of
friendship. Having poured the vials of his bilious temper over my
devoted head, he became as perverse and as obstinate as a mule. With
the most consummate impudence I ever beheld in any human being, he
flatly denied all knowledge of the bracelet.

Whilst I talked he stalked past me into the ante-chamber, where
he at once busied himself in collecting all his goods and chattels.
These he stuffed into his pockets until he appeared to be bulging all
over his ugly-body; then he went to the door ready to go out. On the
threshold he turned and gave me a supercilious glance over his
shoulder.

"Take note, my good Ratichon," he said, "that our partnership is
dissolved as from to-morrow, the twentieth day of September."

"As from this moment, you infernal scoundrel!" I cried.

But he did not pause to listen, and slammed the door in my face.

For two or three minutes I remained quite still, whilst I heard the
shuffling footsteps slowly descending the corridor. Then I followed
him, quietly, surreptitiously, as a fox will follow its prey. He never
turned round once, but obviously he knew that he was being followed.

I will not weary you, my dear Sir, with the details of the dance which
he led me in and about Paris during the whole of that memorable day.
Never a morsel passed my lips from breakfast to long after sundown. He
tried every trick known to the profession to throw me off the scent.
But I stuck to him like a leech. When he sauntered I