er knew me?"

"Who told you that I was a prisoner at Sainte-Pelagie?"

"Didn't I take you out of prison?"

"Why did you take me out?"

"Because I have a good heart."

"You are very fond of me, perhaps--just as the butcher likes the ox that
he drives to the slaughter-house."

"Are you mad?"

"A man does not pay a hundred thousand francs for another without a
motive."

"I have a motive."

"What is it? what do you want to do with me?"

"A jolly companion that will spend his money like a man, and pass every
night like the last. Good wine, good cheer, pretty girls, and gay songs.
Is that such a bad trade?"

After he had remained a moment without answering, the young man replied
with a gloomy air: "Why, on the eve of my leaving prison, did you attach
this condition to my freedom, that I should write to my mistress to tell
her that I would never see her again! Why did you exact this letter from
me?"

"A sigh! what, are you still thinking of her?"

"Always."

"You are wrong. Your mistress is far from Paris by this time. I saw her
get into the stage-coach, before I came to take you out of Sainte
Pelagie."

"Yes, I was stifled in that prison. To get out, I would have given my
soul to the devil. You thought so, and therefore you came to me; only,
instead of my soul, you took Cephyse from me. Poor Bacchanal-Queen! And
why did you do it? Thousand thunders! Will you tell me!"

"A man as much attached to his mistress as you are is no longer a man. He
wants energy, when the occasion requires."

"What occasion?"

"Let us drink!"

"You make me drink too much brandy."

"Bah! look at me!"

"That's what frightens me. It seems something devilish. A bottle of
brandy does not even make you wink. You must have a stomach of iron and a
head of marble."

"I have long travelled in Russia. There we drink to roast ourselves."

"And here to only warm. So--let's drink--but wine."

"Nonsense! wine is fit for children. Brandy for men like us!"

"Well, then, brandy; but it burns, and sets the head on fire, and then we
see all the flames of hell!"

"That's how I like to see you, hang it!"

"But when you told me that I was too much attached to my mistress, and
that I should want energy when the occasion required, of what occasion
did you speak?"

"Let us drink!"

"Stop a moment, comrade. I am no more of a fool than others. Your half
words have taught me something.

"Well, what?"

"You know that I have been a work