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 something to fall back upon! I shall be a different man in half an hour. Just give me time to shave and have a bath."

When he had finished dressing, he sat down to the breakfast of eggs and cold meat which Mazeroux had prepared for him; and then, getting up, said:

"Now, let's be off."

"But there's no hurry, Chief. Why don't you lie down for a few hours? The Prefect can wait."

"You're mad! What about Marie Fauville?"

"Marie Fauville?"

"Why, of course! Do you think I'm going to leave her in prison, or Sauverand, either? There's not a second to lose, old chap."

Mazeroux thought to himself that the chief had not quite recovered his wits yet. What? Release Marie Fauville and Sauverand, one, two, three, just like that! No, no, it was going a bit too far.

However, he took down to the Prefect's car a new Perenna, merry, brisk, and as fresh as though he had just got out of bed.

"Very flattering to my pride," said Don Luis to Mazeroux, "most flattering, that hesitation of the Prefect's, after I had warned him over the telephone, followed by his submission at the decisive moment. What a hold I must have on all those jokers, to make them sit up at a sign from little me! 'Beware, gentlemen!' I telephone to them from the bottomless pit. 'Beware! At three o'clock, a bomb!' 'Nonsense!' say they. 'Not a bit of it!' say I. 'How do you know?' 'Because I do.' 'But what proof have you?' 'What proof? That I say so.' 'Oh, well, of course, if you say so!' And, at five minutes