ack trunk from
the hands of an enormous baggage-snatcher who was trying to take
possession of it.

He went to the best hotel in the place, ordered his supper, and hastened
to Meiser's house. His friends at Berlin had given him accounts of that
charming family. He knew that he would have to deal with the richest and
most avaricious of sharpers: that was why he assumed the cavalier tone
that may have seemed strange to more than one reader in the preceding
chapter.

Unhappily, he let himself become a little too human as soon as he had
his million in his pocket. A curiosity to investigate the long yellow
bottles all the way to the bottom, came near doing him an ugly turn. His
reason wandered, about one o'clock in the morning, if I am to believe
the account he himself gave. He said that, after saying "good night" to
the excellent people who had treated him so well, he tumbled into a
large and deep well, whose rim was hardly raised above the level of the
street, and ought at least to have had a lamp by it. "I came to" (it is
still he speaking) "in water, very fresh and of a pleasant taste. After
swimming around a minute or two, looking for a firm place to take hold
of, I seized a big rope, and climbed without any trouble to the surface
of the earth, which was not more than forty feet off. It required
nothing but wrists and a little gymnastic skill, and was not much of a
feat, anyhow. On getting on to the pavement, I found myself in the
presence of a sort of night watchman, who was bawling the hours through
the street, and who asked me insolently what I was doing there. I
thrashed him for his impudence, and the gentle exercise did me good, as
it set my blood well in circulation again. Before getting back to the
inn, I stopped under a street lamp, opened my pocket-book, and saw with
pleasure that my million was not wet. The leather was thick, and the
clasp firm; moreover, I had enveloped Herr Meiser's check in a
half-dozen hundred-franc bills, in a roll as fat as a monk. These
surroundings had preserved it."

This examination being made, he went home, went to bed, and slept with
his fists clenched. The next morning he received, on getting up, the
following memoranda, which came from the Nancy police:

"Clementine Pichon, aged eighteen, minor daughter of Auguste Pichon,
hotel-keeper, and Leonie Francelot, was married, in this town, January
11, 1814, to Louis Antoine Langevin; profession not stated.

"The name of Langevin i