"Thank you, master!" cried Mimile, bowing low before the chauffeur: "You may rest assured I shall keep a good look out!"
Mimile exchanged signs of understanding with his two accomplices, whilst they, talking as they went, drew the innocent Casimir towards the nearest tavern, which was crowded with wine-bibbers.
Mimile, as faithful guardian of the limousine, soon got bored, although big Ernestine was prowling around, and came to have a minute's talk with him now and again: they dared not be seen together too much for fear of attracting attention. As time went on, Mimile was surprised that neither the Beadle nor the Beard came to report progress. But at long last the majestic outline of the Beard was seen at the corner of the rue Monceau. The pretended seller of india-rubber was coming out of the tavern.
He hastened to Mimile and, in a low, distinct voice, he gave him some hurried instructions, for now there was no time to lose:
"That idiot would never get done with his stories about motor-cars, and all that stuff and rubbish—what's that to us? But—keep your ears open now, Mimile—it seems there are still fifteen litres of petrol in the tank, and that would take it a long way, for the motor consumes very little.... But this shanty has got to stop about five hundred yards from here, at the corner of the rue de Monceau and the rue de Téhéran ... it's by this way Casimir will take his Baroness back from the ball.... Well, what you have to do is to take fourteen litres and a half from that tank and pitch them in the gutter!... When Casimir finds that his petrol has given out, he will have to go in search of more ... it's during his absence that we will work the trick on the pretty Princess—we'll perform an operation on her, and amputate her—jewellery—the whole lot!"
The Beard drew from under his blouse an empty bottle, which he had stolen in the tavern:
"Here's your measure! Count carefully fourteen litres and a half—that done, wait quietly till Casimir turns up: your part in the story will be forty sous, and not to rouse his suspicions; then, while he goes up the avenue de Valois to take up the Princess, you and Ernestine have to gallop off to the corner of the rue de Monceau and the rue de Téhéran, then ... wait!"
Mimile, with the agility of a monkey and the ability of a first-rate chauffeur—for there was nothing he did not know in the way of applied mechanics, as became an aviator—executed to the letter his accomplice's orders.
The Beard meanwhile had returned to the tavern and Casimir.