At the moment I was working in a little shop near the Porte St. Martin decorating lacquerwork.  We workmen all belonged to a secret society which met nightly in a back room over a wine-shop near the Rue Royale.  We had but one thought—­how to upset the little devil at the Elysee.  Among my comrades was a big fellow from my own city, one Cambier.  He was the leader.  On the ground floor of the shop was built a huge oven where the lacquer was baked.  At night this was made hot with charcoal and allowed to cool off in the morning ready for the finished work of the previous day.  It was Cambier’s duty to attend to this oven.

“One night just after all but he and two others had left the shop a strange man was discovered in a closet where the men kept their working clothes.  He was seized, brought to the light, and instantly recognized as a member of the secret police.

“At daylight the next morning I was aroused from my bed, and, looking up, saw Chapot, an inspector of police, standing over me.  He had known me from a boy, and was a friend of my father’s.

“’Francois, there is trouble at the shop.  A police agent has been murdered.  His body was found in the oven.  Cambier is under arrest.  I know what you have been doing, but I also know that in this you have had no hand.  Here are one hundred francs.  Leave Paris in an hour.’

“I put the money in my pocket, tied my clothes in a bundle, and that night was on my way to Havre, and the next week set sail for here.”

“And what became of Cambier?” I asked.

“I have never heard from that day to this, so I think they must have snuffed him out.”

Then he drifted into his early life here—­the weary tramping of the streets day after day, the half-starving result, the language and people unknown.  Suddenly, somewhere in the lower part of the city, he espied a card tacked outside of a window bearing this inscription, “Decorator wanted.”  A man inside was painting one of the old-fashioned iron tea-trays common in those days.  Monsieur took off his hat, pointed to the card, then to himself, seized the brush, and before the man could protest had covered the bottom with morning-glories so pink and fresh that his troubles ended on the spot.  The first week he earned six dollars; but then this was to be paid at the end of it.  For these six days he subsisted on one meal a day.  This he ate at a restaurant where at night he washed dishes and blacked the head waiter’s boots.  When Saturday came, and the money was counted out in his hand, he thrust it into his pocket, left the shop, and sat down on a doorstep outside to think.

“And, mon ami, what did I do first?”

“Got something to eat?”

“Never.  I paid for a bath, had my hair cut and my face shaved, bought a shirt and collar, and then went back to the restaurant where I had washed dishes the night before, and the head waiter served me.  After that it was easy; the next week it was ten dollars; then in a few years I had a place of my own; then came madame and Lucette—­and here we are.”