Vidocq's pains have not been unavailing, for her eyes shimmer with contempt as she studies our rags.

"You don't set a paw inside 'til I get forty sous. In advance."

Supper is a slice of mutton and a bottle of Romanee served before one of those tavern fires that can neither be killed nor coaxed into full roar. Vidocq takes advantage of the cold to introduce himself to a group of cartmen and wagon drivers, who by their absence of bundles, give sign of being regular drinkers at the Prunaud tavern. To better commend himself to them, Vidocq steals two bottles of gin from Madame's cellar and serves them up in pewter mugs. Someone else brings out the cigars. A musical tribute to the pudenda is drawn out through ten choruses, the mottled tin lamp shakes to the stamp of clogs, and things are far enough along that Vidocq can say, in the very instant the tobacco smoke forks from his nostrils:

"Anyone here know a bugger by the name of Tepac?"

"What's he to you?" comes the general reply.

"Me and my pal," answers Vidocq. "We heard he had some coins to spread around."

"Tepac?" cries a tinware peddler, who is perhaps not really a tinware peddler. "I've never gotten a sou off him."

"Lucky you," says a wagoner. "I've never gotten a word. Tip your hat, he looks right over you, doesn't he? Lord of all creation or some such shit."

"I know the type," Vidocq says, winking. "Farts roses, does he?"

"That don't even-you'd think he was the pope's snot, he carries hisself so high."

"Fuck." Vidocq hangs his head low. "No chance of squeezing him for work, then. He's bound to have loads of servants."

Ah, but this same Tepac, we learn, has only two servants: a cook and a man of all work. He arrived in Saint-Cloud three months ago, in the thick of winter. A certain altitude to his personality led many to think he was affiliated with the royal family, but no one has ever seen him visit the court. He seldom eats out, has no known source of income, and has never been witnessed in the midst of labor. No one has seen him do anything except stroll the streets, twice a day, with a knobbed oaken staff that discourages even the hardiest thief.

"Well, that's it, then," says Vidocq, throwing up his hands. "We'll have to find us another fish."

"Hold a bit! "

The oldest of the cartmen has just finished baptizing the fire with a day's fund of urine, and as he tucks himself back in his trousers, he snarls:

"What you nosing round Saint-Cloud for? A lot more fish in Paris, ain't there?"

Vidocq gives his gin a stir with his index finger and mutters:

"We got our walking papers handed to us."

"Yeah, and who gave 'em to you?"

"Vidocq."

The response is pure gratification as, one by one, the onlookers ply us for more-more. Is it true Vidocq's got eyes in the back of his head? Me, I heard he can sniff a lie from ten miles. What I heard? He's in league with the devil, and once a month, he's got to burn some poor hardworking thief alive. No, it's only 'cause he's got fire coming out his eyes. Honest to God, I saw him burn someone's hat just by looking at it funny. . . .

The only one who refuses to traffic in the general mythography is the cartman, who announces, in a voice loud enough for all SaintCloud to hear:

"I ain't afraid of no Vidocq. If he was sitting there-right where you are, brother-I'd give him what for, believe it. Tear his brains out and shit in his skull, that's what I'd do. Hey! " From his pyre of rage, he glares down at me. "What're you smiling at?"

"I told you already," interjects Vidocq, catching me in the temple. "He's a bit of a simple, that's all."

"Don't no one come on our turf and laugh at us," says the cartman, giving his waistband a belligerent hitch. "Ain't polite, is it?"

Before anything can escalate, the high, squiggling birdcall of Madame Prunaud comes sailing through:

"I'll tell you what ain't polite! "

An avenging vision in her nightgown, already reaching for the cowhide strap on the chimney corner.

"I ain't wasting a good fire on the likes of you! Out with you all! "

At first, she means to include Vidocq and me in the diaspora. It takes another ten sous and a measure of sweet talk to propitiate her.

"To the attic with you, then."

No bed, of course, but there is a mattress. Oozing straw.

"You take it," says Vidocq. "I'm not tired yet."