“Here, Madame,” replied the young clerk, eying superciliously the little basket Fifi laid down on the ledge before him. People made all sorts of contributions to this fund, and the spruce young clerk had several times had his sensibilities outraged by offerings of old shoes, of assignats, even of a live cock. The basket before him looked as if it held a cat—probably one of the rare kind, which the old lady would propose that he should sell, and give the proceeds to the fund. Out of the basket the white-haired old lady with the green barége veil took a parcel, and laying it down, said humbly:
“Monsieur, this gift comes from one who has no husband and no son to give to the empire.”
“To whom shall I make out the receipt, and for how much, Madame?” asked the clerk; but the old lady was already out of the room, and going down the steps much faster than one would expect a person of her age to be able to do.
Once outside Fifi stepped into a dark archway, from which she emerged, a minute later, wearing her own bonnet and red cloak and her own skirt. All of Angéline’s paraphernalia, together with the white wig, was squeezed into a bundle which Fifi cleverly concealed under her cloak. The basket she had tossed down an open cellar under the archway.
She called a closed cab, and stuffing her bundle under the seat, ordered the cabman to drive her in a direction which she knew would take her past the bank. She had the exquisite pleasure of seeing half a dozen clerks rush distractedly out, inquiring frantically if any one had seen in the neighborhood an old lady with a limp, a green veil and a basket. Fifi stopped her cab long enough to get a description of herself from one of the wildest-looking of the clerks.
“But why, Monsieur, do you wish to find this old lady?” Fifi asked.
“Because, Mademoiselle, she has stolen ninety thousand francs from this bank a moment ago or given ninety thousand francs to something or other,” cried the clerk, who had entirely confounded the story of Fifi’s adventure, which had been imparted to him in haste and confusion.
Fifi, nearly dying with laughter, rolled away in her cab. The last glimpse she had of her late friend, the bank clerk, he had found the basket in the archway, and was declaiming with disheveled hair and wild gesticulations concerning the robbery, or the gift, he did not know which.
Fifi was not away from home more than half an hour, and when Angéline, about one o’clock, passed through the snuff-colored drawing-room, she saw Fifi, through the open door, sitting at the writing-table in her bedroom, and scribbling away for dear life. This is what she wrote:
“Cartouche: I have got your letter and I have followed your advice—I will not say exactly how—but you will shortly see me, I think, in the dear old street of the Black Cat. Fifi.”