"Can you prove it?"
"Of course."
"And what do you ask for it?"
"A hundred francs as earnest; and I will give you the word arranged with my woman, on which she will hand you the prints, from which you can make the false keys. And, moreover, if the thing comes off, I shall expect a fifth share of the swag to be handed over to my woman."
"That's not unreasonable."
"As I shall know to whom she has given the prints, if I am done out of my share I shall know whom to inform against."
"And very right, too, if you were choused; but amongst prigs and cracksmen there's honour,—we must rely on each other, or all business would be impossible."
Another anomaly in this horrid existence. This villain spoke the truth. It is very seldom that thieves fail in their faith in such arrangements as these, but they usually act with a kind of good faith,—or, rather, that we may not prostitute the word, we will say that necessity compels these ruffians to keep their words; for if they failed, as the companion of the Gros-Boiteux said, "All business would be impossible." A great number of robberies are arranged, bought, and plotted in this way in gaol,—another pernicious result of confinement in common.
"If what you say is sure," continued Cardillac, "I can agree for the job. There are no proofs against me, I am sure to be acquitted, and in a fortnight I shall be out; let us add three weeks in order to turn oneself about, to get the false keys, and lay our plans, and then in six weeks from this—"
"You'll go to the job in the very nick of time."