"Yes, M. Rodolph protects you. When I say monsieur, I should say monseigneur, for he is at least a prince; but I have a habit of calling him M. Rodolph, which he permits me to do."
"You are under some mistake," said Germain, more and more surprised; "I do not know the prince."
"Yes, but he knows you. You don't believe it? Well, that's possible, for that's his way. He knows that there is some worthy fellow in trouble, and then, in an instant, the good fellow is comforted, and, without being seen or known, he is at work, and kindness falls from the skies, like a tile from a house on your head. So patience, and one day or other you will have your tile."
"Really, what you say amazes me!"
"Ah, you'll have a great deal more to amaze you yet! To return to my protector: Some time ago, after a service which he persisted I had done him, he procured me a splendid position, I need not say where, or any more about it, for it would be a long tale to tell. Well, he sends me to Marseilles to embark and go to a capital appointment in Algeria. I left Paris as happy as a child; but, all of a sudden, a change comes over me."
"That was singular!"
"Why, you must know that once separated from M. Rodolph I was uneasy, disturbed, as fidgety as a dog who has lost his master. It was very stupid; but so are dogs, sometimes, but that does not prevent them from being at least attached, and as well mindful of the nice bits given them as of the thumps and kicks they have had, and M. Rodolph had given me many nice bits, and, in truth, M. Rodolph is everything to me. From being a riotous, dare-devil, good-for-nothing blackguard, he made an honest man of me by only saying two words, just for all the world like magic."
"What were the words he said?"
"He said I had still heart and honour, although I have been at the galleys, not for having stolen, it is true,—ah, never that,—but what perhaps is worse, for having killed,—yes," said the Chourineur, in a gloomy tone, "killed in a moment of passion, because formerly growing up like a brute beast, or, rather, as a vagabond, without father or mother, and left abandoned in the streets of Paris, I knew neither God nor devil—neither good nor evil. Sometimes the blood mounted to my eyes, and I saw red, and if I had a knife in my hands I slashed and hacked,—I was a real savage—a beast, and only lived amongst thieves and scoundrels. I was in the mud, and in the mud I lived as well as I could. But when M. Rodolph said to me that since, in spite of the contempt of all the world and my misery, instead of plundering like others I had preferred working as long as I could, and for what I could, that showed I had still heart and honour—thunder!—you see these two words had the same effect on me as if I had been seized by the hair of my head and lifted a thousand feet into the air above the vermin with whom I dwelt, and showed me the filth in which my life was spent. So I said, 'Thank ye, I've had enough of this!' Then my heart beat with something else besides anger, and I took an oath to myself always to preserve that honour which M. Rodolph spoke of. You see, M. Germain, that when M. Rodolph told me so kindly that I was not so bad as I believed myself to be, that encouraged me, and, thanks to him, I became better than I had been."
When he heard this language, Germain comprehended less and less how the Chourineur had committed the robbery of which he accused himself.