accursed bundle of documents.

"'When I was down on my luck, I learned to act on the stage,' added
Cerizet. 'I am as good as Bouffe at old men.'

"'I have fallen among thieves!' shouted Maxime.

"'No, Monsieur le Comte, you are in Mlle. Hortense's house. She is a
friend of old Lord Dudley's; he keeps her hidden away here; but she
has the bad taste to like your humble servant.'

"'If ever I longed to kill a man,' so the Count told me afterwards,
'it was at that moment; but what could one do? Hortense showed her
pretty face, one had to laugh. To keep my dignity, I flung her the six
hundred francs. "There's for the girl," said I.'"

"That is Maxime all over!" cried La Palferine.

"More especially as it was little Croizeau's money," added Cardot the
profound.

"Maxime scored a triumph," continued Desroches, "for Hortense
exclaimed, 'Oh, if I had only known that it was you!'"

"A pretty 'confusion' indeed!" put in Malaga. "You have lost, milord,"
she added turning to the notary.

And in this way the cabinetmaker, to whom Malaga owed a hundred
crowns, was paid.