Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 3.djvu/54

 bar to work your turning-wheel. If they ask for your papers, come to me, and I will say that you are my apprentice." I went on with the crow-bar in my hand, and he told me to give it to him, that he might carry it under his great coat, lest I should meet any of the agents. Leblanc then conducted me to his house, and on arriving, his first care was to go down into his cellar to hide the crow-bar. I went up stairs and found Lefebvre there, to whom I said that I had bought the tool. The same evening, after having sat drinking till ten o'clock, Lefebvre, Peyois, and myself went round the temple to a small street, the name of which I forget; Peyois, whilst I and Lefebvre were on the watch, made thirty-three holes by means of a centre-bit, in the shutter of a milliner's shop. The knife he used to enlarge the holes having broken, and our attempt thus failing, we retired, and went then to the market at the corner of St. Eustache, when Peyois, using the crow-bar, tried to force the door of a silk-mercer. Some one within having asked what we wanted, we fled; it was then half-past two o'clock in the morning. We went all then to the hôtel d'Angleterre, when PerjoisPeyois [sic] left with the woman of the house, whom he knew, an umbrella which he had with him.

"Before he entered, Peyois had left the crow-bar, which was wrapped up, with a coffee-seller in the street. We left the hôtel d'Angleterre about five o'clock, and Peyois again took the bar from the woman in whose charge he had left it. I must say that woman knew nothing of what it was. Peyois went then to Leblanc's, and carried the bar with him. Lefebvre and I did not part company, but returned to Leblanc's at five o'clock in the evening, and remained there till tea. Leblanc gave me a phosphorus light-box in case we should need one, and also a piece of candle. I amused myself with tracing on this light-box, which was of lead, with my knife, the letter L, which is Leblanc's initial. Peyois, Lefebvre, and I went out together. Peyois, having taken the bar with him, passed the bar-