"Parbleu! I have found my man—my Sicilian."

"Ah! the man with a secret?"

"Just so."

"And he's a Sicilian?"

"Yes, a Sicilian from Pontoise. Ah! what a fool I am! what did I say that for? Don't repeat that, Boulotte, I beg you. If you ever see me anywhere with a man you don't know, don't let the word Pontoise escape you—or everything's over between us!"

"What silly nonsense is this you are giving me? You act like a crazy man!"

"Let's drop that. Have you done my errand?"

"Yes, monsieur; I have done your errand. I was sure that Rosa, who knows all the second-hand clothes women in Paris, would know her; she sold her not long ago a steel comb, which she owed to the munificence of an Englishman, with two teeth broken——"

"The Englishman?"

"No, the comb!"