“It is deserved. Why, you took in Peyrade; he believed you to be a police officer—he!—I tell you what, if you had not that fool of a boy to take care of, you would have thrashed us.”
“Oh! monsieur, but you are forgetting Contenson disguised as a mulatto, and Peyrade as an Englishman. Actors have the stage to help them, but to be so perfect by daylight, and at all hours, no one but you and your men——”
“Come, now,” said Corentin, “we are fully convinced of our worth and merits. And here we stand each of us quite alone; I have lost my old friend, you your young companion. I, for the moment, am in the stronger position, why should we not do like the men in l’Auberge des Adrets? I offer you my hand, and say, ‘Let us embrace, and let bygones be bygones.’ Here, in the presence of Monsieur le Comte, I propose to give you full and plenary absolution, and you shall be one of my men, the chief next to me, and perhaps my successor.”
“You really offer me a situation?” said Jacques Collin. “A nice situation indeed!—out of the fire into the frying-pan!”
“You will be in a sphere where your talents will be highly appreciated and well paid for, and you will act at your ease. The Government police are not free from perils. I, as you see me, have already been imprisoned twice, but I am none the worse for that. And we travel, we are what we choose to appear. We pull the wires of political dramas, and are treated with politeness by very great people.—Come, my dear Jacques Collin, do you say yes?”
“Have you orders to act in this matter?” said the convict.
“I have a free hand,” replied Corentin, delighted at his own happy idea.
“You are trifling with me; you are very shrewd, and you must allow that a man may be suspicious of you.—You have sold more than one man by tying him up in a sack after making him go into it of his own accord. I know all your great victories—the Montauran case, the Simeuse business—the battles of Marengo of espionage.”
“Well,” said Corentin, “you have some esteem for the public prosecutor?”
“Yes,” said Jacques Collin, bowing respectfully, “I admire his noble character, his firmness, his dignity. I would give my life to make him happy. Indeed, to begin with, I will put an end to the dangerous condition in which Madame de Serizy now is.”