Patrice leant more heavily on his companion’s arm:
“You, who know so many good people, haven’t you the fellow I want concealed about your person? A genius of sorts? A demigod?”
Ya-Bon grunted again, merrily this time, and withdrew his arm. He always carried a little electric lamp. Switching on the light, he put the handle between his teeth. Then he took a bit of chalk out of his jacket-pocket.
A grimy, weather-beaten plaster wall ran along the street. Ya-Bon took his stand in front of the wall and, turning the light upon it, began to write with an unskilful hand, as though each letter cost him a measureless effort and as though the sum total of those letters were the only one that he had ever succeeded in composing and remembering. In this way he wrote two words which Patrice read out:
Arsène Lupin.
“Arsène Lupin,” said Patrice, under his breath. And, looking at Ya-Bon in amazement, “Are you in your right mind? What do you mean by Arsène Lupin? Are you suggesting Arsène Lupin to me?”
Ya-Bon nodded his head.
“Arsène Lupin? Do you know him?”
“Yes,” Ya-Bon signified.
Patrice then remembered that the Senegalese used to spend his days at the hospital getting his good-natured comrades to read all the adventures of Arsène Lupin aloud to him; and he grinned: