“Have you not Bonvallot?”
“Oh hé! Bonvallot. A man without parts, without understanding, without knowledge of the world! A nice man to leave me in company with!”
“But I do not intend leaving you in his company. I ask you only for the big sou that I may look at it and see what another man has done so that he might obtain his liberty. If you refuse to gratify my curiosity, M. Ferminard, I shall stuff up that hole with my blanket, and there will be an end of our pleasant conversations.”
“Well, M. de Rochefort, here it is, pull your bed out and I will put it in your hand.”
Rochefort arose and pulled his bed out and the hand of Ferminard came through the hole. Rochefort took the coin and approached the lamp with it.
It was indeed a marvel: in a moment he managed to unscrew the two surfaces and from the tiny box which they formed when in apposition leaped a little silvery saw, small as a watch-spring.
Rochefort, leaving the little saw on the table, refastened the box.
“Mordieu!” said he, “it is clever. What will you sell it to me for, Monsieur Ferminard?”
“You shall have it as a gift, M. Rochefort, when we are both breathing the free air of heaven, but only then.”
“You think I will use it to make my escape?”