Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 2.djvu/150

 I wish you could hear the little tailor who lives lower down."

Husband. "Oh, he speaks from a professional jealousy."

Wife. "And the porteress at No. 27, who speaks of what she knows well, says that she has seen him go out every evening with a thick stick, so well disguised that she did not know him."

Husband. "The porteress says that?"

Wife. "And that he went to lay wait for the people in the Champs Élysées."

Husband. "Are you growing foolish?"

Wife. "Ah, is that foolish! The cook-shopman, perhaps is foolish, when he says that they were all robbers who came in, and that he had seen M. Vidocq with some very ill-looking fellows."

Husband. "Well! who had ill looks after"

Wife. "After all, he is, said the commissary to the grocer, a worthless man; and worse than that, for he added that he was a vile criminal, and justice could not get hold of him."

Husband. "And you talk nonsense; you believe the commissary because he is beating up our quarters; but I will never be persuaded that M. Vidocq is a dishonest man. I think, on the other hand, that he is a good fellow, a punctual man. Besides, whatever he may be, it is no business of ours; let us meddle with our own affairs, and time wags onward;—we must to work; come quickly, to work, to work."

The sitting was adjourned; father, mother, son, and little daughter, all the Fossé family, went away, and I remained locked up, reflecting on the perfidious insinuations of the police, who to deprive me of the aid of my neighbours, represented me as an infamous villain. I have often seen, subsequently, this species of tactics employed, the success of which is always founded on atrocious calumnies and measures, revolting, because unjust; clumsy, because they produce an effect entirely contrary to that which is expected; for those