"I am sending this by Cæsar," he wrote, "because I am watched. The man following me is a bad-looking brute with dirty gray beard and no mustache. He has a nervous trick of half shutting his eyes and jerking up the corners of his mouth, which shows the worst set of ugly yellow teeth I ever saw. I'd like to have one of them for a curiosity."
"Would you?" said the man suddenly, as if answering a question.
Tignol stared at him.
"Excuse me," explained the other, "but I read handwriting upside down."
"Oh!"
"You say you would like one of my teeth?"
"Don't trouble," smiled Tignol.
"It's no trouble," declared the stranger. "On the contrary!" and seizing one of his yellow fangs between thumb and first finger he gave a quick wrench. "There!" he said with a hideous grin, and he handed Tignol the tooth.
They were just coming into the Auteuil station as this extraordinary maneuver was accomplished.
"I'll be damned!" exclaimed Tignol.