NUMBER TWO HUNDRED AND SEVEN.

Mueller, when he so confidently proposed to visit Bras de Fer in his future retirement at Toulon, believed that he had only to lodge his information with the proper authorities, and see the whole affair settled out of hand.  He had not taken the bureaucratic system into consideration; and he had forgotten how little positive evidence he had to offer.  It was no easier then than now to inspire the official mind with either insight or decision; and the police of Paris, inasmuch as they in no wise differed from the police of to-day, yesterday, or to-morrow, were slow to understand, slow to believe, and slower still to act.

An escaped convict?  Monsieur le Chef du Bureau, upon whom we took the liberty of waiting the next morning, could scarcely take in the bare possibility of such a fact.  An escaped convict?  Bah! no convict could possibly escape under the present admirable system. Comment!  He effected his escape some years ago?  How many years ago?  In what yard, in what ward, under what number was he entered in the official books?  For what offence was he convicted?  Had Monsieur seen him at Toulon?—­and was Monsieur prepared to swear that Lenoir and Bras de Fer were one and the same person?  How!  Monsieur proposed to identify a certain individual, and yet was incapable of replying to these questions!  Would Monsieur be pleased to state upon what grounds he undertook to denounce the said individual, and what proof he was prepared to produce in confirmation of the same?

To all which official catechizing, Mueller, who (wanting Guichet’s testimony) had nothing but his intense personal conviction to put forward, could only reply that he was ready to pledge himself to the accuracy of his information; and that if Monsieur the Chef du Bureau would be at the pains to call in any Toulon official of a few years’ standing, he would undoubtedly find that the person now described as calling himself Lenoir, and the person commonly known in the Bagnes as Bras de Fer, were indeed “one and the same.”

Whereupon Monsieur le Chef—­a pompous personage, with a bald head and a white moustache—­shrugged his shoulders, smiled incredulously, had the honor to point out to Monsieur that the Government could by no means be at the expense of conveying an inspector from Toulon to Paris on so shadowy and unsupported a statement, and politely bowed us out.

Thus rebuffed, Mueller began to despair of present success; whilst I, in default of any brighter idea, proposed that he should take legal advice on the subject.  So we went to a certain avocat, in a little street adjoining the Ecole de Droit, and there purchased as much wisdom as might be bought for the sum of five francs sterling.