"Heavens! I haven't my purse," said Julia Redmond. "Will you not give him something, Monsieur?"
"Wait," said Tremont, "wait. What else do you know? If your information is worth anything to us we will pay you, don't be afraid."
"Perhaps the excellency's grandmother would like to hear, too," said the man naively.
Julia Redmond smiled: the youthful Marquise d'Esclignac!
Once more Tremont seized the man by the arm and shook him a little.
"If you don't tell what you have to say and be quick about it, my dear fellow, I shall hand you over to the police."
"What for?" said the man, "what have I done?"
"Well, what have you got to tell, and how much do you want for it?"
"I want one hundred francs for this," and he pulled out from his dirty rags a little packet and held it up cautiously.
It looked like a package of letters and a man's pocketbook.