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326 jump for the top of the wall and swarmed over, then dropped on the other side and waited—but not for long.

The undergrowth right there was very thick and had that tropical luxuriance which you find in the Valley of the Seine in the late summer, especially when the season has been warm and moist. There was a little path that wound between thickets and heavy masses of laurel, ivy and holly. One could only see a few feet in any direction, but I had scarcely struck the ground when I heard the noise of people hurrying through the under-growth.

"Chu-Chu and his mob," I said to myself—"the whole gang has got past the police!"

Let me tell you, my friend, that for a second I wished I had not been quite so rash. I had counted on tackling Chu-Chu, but had never thought of its being necessary to take on the whole bunch. On the contrary, it seemed more probable that Chu-Chu would have used the others to cover his own retreat. He was no coward, but he was a consistent thief, and Ivan was right when he said that the first requirement for success in any line of graft is absolute selfishness. Many an able thief has gone under due to a flash of decent feeling, but that would never have been the cause of Chu-Chu's finish.

Here came a gang of them, and they were coming fast and as silently as they could through that tangle—a whole band, with Chu-Chu in the lead. I looked over my shoulder at the wall and wished that I were back on the other side. I had an automatic pistol that held eleven cartridges, and there was a handy knife in my belt, but the odds were too heavy.