great Italian criminals, and had made a number of important
arrests in Paris."

"Get on, get on! come to the essential."

"Well, in the middle of the journey, when we were about the Pont
Henri Quatre, he said, 'Figure to yourself, my friend, that it is
now near noon, that nothing has passed my lips since before
daylight at Laroche. What say you? Could you eat a mouthful, just
a scrap on the thumb-nail? Could you?'"

"And you--greedy, gormandizing beast!--you agreed?"

"My faith, monsieur, I too was hungry. It was my regular hour.
Well--at any rate, for my sins I accepted. We entered the first
restaurant, that of the 'Reunited Friends,' you know it, perhaps,
monsieur? A good house, especially noted for tripe _à la mode de
Caen_." In spite of his anguish, Block smacked his fat lips at
the thought of this most succulent but very greasy dish.

"How often must I tell you to get on?"

"Forgive me, monsieur, but it is all part of my story. We had
oysters, two dozen Marennes, and a glass or two of Chablis; then a
good portion of tripe, and with them a bottle, only one, monsieur,
of Pontet Canet; after that a beefsteak with potatoes and a little
Burgundy, then a rum omelet."

"Great Heavens! you should be the fat man in a fair, not an agent
of the Detective Bureau."