Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 3.djvu/68

 Frenchman always follows, I went out; in my road I accidentally pushed against a door, it gave way, and, by the freshness of the air, I found I was in a court; the place was propitious, and I groped along, until I made a trip over some paving stones which had been left in the way. I stretched out my arms to recover myself, and whilst with one hand I grasped hold of a post, I seized with the other something very soft and very long. I was in darkness, but fancied I saw several sparks shining, and by the touch I thought I recognised a certain velvet appendage of a quadruped's vertebral column. I kept hold of a bunch of it, and drawing it through my hand, there remained a packet of spoils, with which I entered the room at the very moment when M. Double-Croche, pointing out the figures to the dancers, was howling out "la queue du chat."

It needs not to be asked how very à propos this was; there was throughout the assembly a general mewing, but it was only a joke; the lovers of fricassee mewed like the rest, and, after having taken their caps off, they said, "Come on, here is the good stuff! Covered by cat-skin, and fed on cats, we shall not soon be in want; the mother of tom-cats is not yet dead."

Father Guillotin consumed generally more oil than cotton, but I can, nevertheless, affirm, that, in my time, some banquets have been spread at his cabaret, which, subtracting the liquids, could not have cost more at the café Riche or at Grignon's. I remember six individuals, named Driancourt, Vilattes, Pitroux, and three others, who found means to spend 166 francs there in one night. In fact, each of them had with him his favourite bella. The citizen no doubt pretty well fleeced them, but they did not complain, and that quarter of an hour which Rabelais had so much difficulty in passing, caused them no trouble; they paid like grandees, without forgetting the waiter. I apprehended them whilst they were paying the bill, which they had not even taken the trouble of examining. Thieves are generous when they are caught "i' the vein." They had just committed