in accommodating the heavy key, and he accordingly determined to
hide it in the spot we have indicated.

Chicot, therefore, it must be confessed, felt a slight shudder creeping
over him as he plunged his fingers in the hollow of the stone; this
shudder was succeeded by a feeling of the most unmixed delight when the
cold of the iron met his hand, for the key was really and truly in the
spot where he had left it.

It was precisely the same with regard to the furniture in the first room
he came to; the same, too, with the small board which he had nailed to
the joist; and lastly, the same with the thousand crowns, which were
still slumbering in their oaken hiding-place.

Chicot was not a miser; quite the contrary, indeed: he had very
frequently thrown gold about broadcast, thereby allowing the ideal to
triumph over the material, which is the philosophy of every man who is
of any value; but no sooner had the mind momentarily ceased to exercise
its influence over matter--in other words, whenever money was no longer
needed, nor sacrifice requisite--whenever, in a word, the senses
temporarily regained their influence over Chicot's mind, and whenever
his mind allowed the body to live and to take enjoyment, gold, that
principal, that unceasing, that eternal source of animal delights,
reassumed its value in our philosopher's eyes, and no one knew better
than he did into how many delicious particles that inestimable totality
which people call a crown is subdivided.

"Ventre de biche!" murmured Chicot, sitting down in the middle of his
room, after he had removed the flagstone, and with the small piece of
board by his side, and his treasure under his eyes, "ventre de biche!
that excellent young man is a most invaluable neighbor, for he has made
others respect my money, and has himself respected it too; in sober
truth, such an action is wonderful in such times as the present.
Mordieux! I owe some thanks to that excellent young fellow, and he shall
have them this evening."

Thereupon Chicot replaced the plank over the joist, the flagstone over
the plank, approached the window, and looked toward the opposite side of
the street.

The house still retained that gray and somber aspect which the
imagination bestows as their natural color upon buildings whose
character it seems to know.

"It cannot yet be their time for retiring to rest," said Chicot; "and
besides, those fellows, I am sure, are not very sound sleepers; so let
us see.