There were spaces of asphalt, succeeded by wood pavement, then by hard stones, then asphalt and wood again, and turning succeeded turning, whilst a new Tom Thumb was doing his possible to guess the route the Salad Basket was taking. Presently Fandor gave it up. He had to admit that he was completely lost.... Which way the Salad Basket was going he knew no more than the Man in the Moon!
"We have been trotting along for more than half an hour; therefore we cannot be going to the boulevard Exelmans police station ... the distance from the rue du Docteur-Blanche to the Point-du-Jour is not great...."
As Fandor was murmuring these words, the van slowed down, turned round; then, with a bump and a jolt, it mounted the footpath.
"Now for it," said Fandor. "This is certainly not the Point-du-Jour station!... We are passing under an archway—now we are turning again.... Ah, we draw up, at last!... Not too soon!"
The van did stop.
Again a wait. Fandor cocked both ears; he wondered who was going to enter the cell next his. Then a man approached the door of his little cell, where he was indeed "cribbed, cabined and confined"; inserted a key in the lock, opened, and shouted in a brutal tone:
"Out with you!... March! Quick now!"
Fandor had no choice but to obey the orders hurled at him. But no sooner had he descended the steps of the prison van than he exclaimed:
"By Jove! The Dépôt!"
This was not the moment to express all the surprise he felt at being landed at Police Headquarters in this fashion.... All round the Salad Basket the police were ranged in irregular order. They shouted to him to be quick.