“He is our boss” (dab or master) said Fil-de-Soie, seeing in Jacques Collin’s eyes the vague glance a man sunk in despair casts on all his surroundings.

“By Jingo!  Yes, it is Trompe-la-Mort,” said le Biffon, rubbing his hands.  “Yes, it is his cut, his build; but what has he done to himself?  He looks quite different.”

“I know what he is up to!” cried Fil-de-Soie; “he has some plan in his head.  He wants to see the boy” (sa tante) “who is to be executed before long.”

The persons known in prison as tantes or aunts may be best described in the ingenious words of the governor of one of the great prisons to the late Lord Durham, who, during his stay in Paris, visited every prison.  So curious was he to see every detail of French justice, that he even persuaded Sanson, at that time the executioner, to erect the scaffold and decapitate a living calf, that he might thoroughly understand the working of the machine made famous by the Revolution.  The governor having shown him everything—­the yards, the workshops, and the underground cells—­pointed to a part of the building, and said, “I need not take your Lordship there; it is the quartier des tantes.”—­“Oh,” said Lord Durham, “what are they!”—­“The third sex, my Lord.”

“And they are going to scrag Theodore!” said la Pouraille, “such a pretty boy!  And such a light hand! such cheek!  What a loss to society!”

“Yes, Theodore Calvi is yamming his last meal,” said le Biffon.  “His trips will pipe their eyes, for the little beggar was a great pet.”

“So you’re here, old chap?” said la Pouraille to Jacques Collin.  And, arm-in-arm with his two acolytes, he barred the way to the new arrival.  “Why, Boss, have you got yourself japanned?” he went on.

“I hear you have nobbled our pile” (stolen our money), le Biffon added, in a threatening tone.

“You have just got to stump up the tin!” said Fil-de-Soie.

The three questions were fired at him like three pistol-shots.

“Do not make game of an unhappy priest sent here by mistake,” Jacques Collin replied mechanically, recognizing his three comrades.

“That is the sound of his pipe, if it is not quite the cut of his mug,” said la Pouraille, laying his hand on Jacques Collin’s shoulder.

This action, and the sight of his three chums, startled the “Boss” out of his dejection, and brought him back to a consciousness of reality; for during that dreadful night he had lost himself in the infinite spiritual world of feeling, seeking some new road.

“Do not blow the gaff on your Boss!” said Jacques Collin in a hollow threatening tone, not unlike the low growl of a lion.  “The reelers are here; let them make fools of themselves.  I am faking to help a pal who is awfully down on his luck.”

He spoke with the unction of a priest trying to convert the wretched, and a look which flashed round the yard, took in the warders under the archways, and pointed them out with a wink to his three companions.