When the registrar of the Conciergerie returned, his fellow registrar's face had resumed its expression of stolid indifference.
As they went out of the Conciergerie two men entered. They were the Citizen Gracchus and his cousin Mardoche.
On seeing each other, Cousin Mardoche and the registrar of the Minister of War each, by a simultaneous movement arising from the same impulse, pulled over their eyes, the one his hairy bonnet, the other his broad-brimmed hat.
"Who are these men?" asked the registrar of the Minister of War.
"I only know one of them; it is a turnkey named Gracchus."
"Ah!" said the other, with affected indifference, "do the turnkeys then go out of the Conciergerie?"
"They have their day."
The investigation did not proceed any further, and the new friends took the road to the Pont-au-Change. At the corner of the Place du Châtelet, the registrar of the Minister of War, following the programme he had announced, purchased some oysters, and continued his way by the Quai de Gèvres.
The dwelling of this individual was simple. The Citizen Durand inhabited three little rooms in the Place de Grève, in a house without any porter. Each tenant had a key of the door in the passage, and it was agreed that if any one had omitted to take his key, he should intimate the same by one, two, or three raps with the knocker, according to the story he inhabited, and any one who was waiting, and heard the signal, then descended and opened the door; but the Citizen Durand, having provided himself with his key, had not any occasion to knock. They ascended two flights of stairs, when the Citizen Durand drew another key from his pocket, and they both entered.