Here, while waiting for the sailing of the Havre steamer, he was again arrested as being Pierre Quentineau a fugitive from justice and a bond-forger.
By the merest good luck the cotton-broker in whose employ he had been in Memphis happened to be in the city, and Scipion was able to establish an alibi. His passport was stolen from him on the Memphis steamer, and he had to get another one in New York, being thus delayed a week.
Finally, to his intense joy, he was outside Sandy Hook on his return voyage.
Arrived at Havre, he was accosted on the quay by a customs officer with, “Eh bien! Monsieur Quentineau! What have you to declare at this time?”
“Sacre bete de Quentineau!” cried the exasperated boutiquier; “I am Scipion Desruelles, marchand, numero 79 bis rue de Seine.”
“Then, sir, you must be detained,” said the officer.
While he was waiting in the customs office a man came behind him, slipped something in his hand, and whispered: “Don’t be afraid, Quentineau! They have nothing whatever against you! Here’s what I owe you!”
Desruelles turned quickly, but the man who had spoken to him was already lost in the crowd, and Scipion found eight gold Napoleons in his hand. Mechanically he put the money in his pocket, cursing this Quentineau whom everybody persisted in mistaking him for.
His baggage proving all right, and his passport not objectionable, Scipion was after some delay permitted to start for Paris, but still under the suspicion of the authorities that he was not Desruelles, but Quentineau. At Rouen, in the railroad restaurant, he changed a Napoleon to buy a bottle of wine and half a chicken. As soon as he reached Paris he took a fiacre and drove to numero 79 Rue de Seine. His modest sign was no longer there, but instead of it one of:
“Lamballe, coiffeur et parfumeur.”