Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 2.djvu/140

 paying my contribution to these two scoundrels, I could not help letting them know how inconsiderately they had behaved. "Consider what a step you have taken," said I to them; "they know nothing at my house, and you have told all; my wife, who carries on the concern in her name, will perhaps turn me out, and then I must be reduced to the lowest ebb of misery."—"Oh you can come and rob with us," answered the two rascals.

I endeavoured to convince them how much better it was to owe an existence to honest toil, than to be in incessant fear from the police, which sooner or later catches all malefactors in its nets. I added that one crime generally leads to another; that he would risk his neck who ran straight towards the guillotine; and the termination of my discourse was, that they would do well to renounce the dangerous carreer on which they had entered.

"Not so bad!" cried Blondy, when I had finished my lecture, "not so bad! But can you in the mean time point out to us any apartment that we can ransack. We are, you see, like Harlequin, and I have more need of cash than advice;" and they left me, laughing deridingly at me. I called them back, to profess my attachment to them, and begged them not to call again at my house. "If that is all," said Deluc, "we will keep from that."—"Oh yes, we'll keep away," added Blondy, "since that is unpleasant to your mistress."

But the latter did not stay away long: the very next day at nightfall he presented himself at my warehouse, and asked to speak to me privately. I took him into my own room. "We are alone?" said he to me, looking round at the room in which we were; and when he was assured that he had no witnesses, he drew from his pocket eleven silver forks and two gold watches, which he placed on a stand. "Four hundred francs for this would not be too much—the silver plate and the gold watches—Come, tip us the needful."—"Four hundred francs!" said I, alarmed at so abrupt a total.