But still my mind remained in a chaotic condition.  I had not succeeded in forming any plan.  What a quandary, Sir!  Oh! what a quandary!  Here was I, Hector Ratichon, the confidant of kings, the right hand of two emperors, set to the task of stealing a dog—­for that is what I should have to do—­from an unscrupulous gang of thieves whose identity, abode and methods were alike unknown to me.  Truly, Sir, you will own that this was a herculean task.

Vaguely my thoughts reverted to Theodore.  He might have been of good counsel, for he knew more about thieves than I did, but the ungrateful wretch was out of the way on the one occasion when he might have been of use to me who had done so much for him.  Indeed, my reason told me that I need not trouble my head about Theodore.  He had vanished; that he would come back presently was, of course, an indubitable fact; people like Theodore never vanish completely.  He would come back and demand I know not what, his share, perhaps, in a business which was so promising even if it was still so vague.

Five thousand francs!  A round sum!  If I gave Theodore five hundred the sum would at once appear meagre, unimportant.  Four thousand five hundred francs!—­it did not even sound well to my mind.

So I took care that Theodore vanished from my mental vision as completely as he had done for the last two days from my ken, and as there was nothing more that could be done that evening, I turned my weary footsteps toward my lodgings at Passy.

All that night, Sir, I lay wakeful and tossing in my bed, alternately fuming and rejecting plans for the attainment of that golden goal—­the recovery of Mme. de Nole’s pet dog.  And the whole of the next day I spent in vain quest.  I visited every haunt of ill-fame known to me within the city.  I walked about with a pistol in my belt, a hunk of bread and cheese in my pocket, and slowly growing despair in my heart.

In the evening Mme. la Comtesse de Nole called for news of Carissimo, and I could give her none.  She cried, Sir, and implored, and her tears and entreaties got on to my nerves until I felt ready to fall into hysterics.  One more day and all my chances of a bright and wealthy future would have vanished.  Unless the money was forthcoming on the morrow, the dog would be destroyed, and with him my every hope of that five thousand francs.  And though she still irradiated charm and luxury from her entire lovely person, I begged her not to come to the office again, and promised that as soon as I had any news to impart I would at once present myself at her house in the Faubourg St. Germain.

That night I never slept one wink.  Think of it, Sir!  The next few hours were destined to see me either a prosperous man for many days to come, or a miserable, helpless, disappointed wretch.  At eight o’clock I was at my office.  Still no news of Theodore.  I could now no longer dismiss him from my mind.  Something had happened to him, I could have no doubt.  This anxiety, added to the other more serious one, drove me to a state bordering on frenzy.  I hardly knew what I was doing.  I wandered all day up and down the Quai Voltaire, and the Quai des Grands Augustins, and in and around the tortuous streets till I was dog-tired, distracted, half crazy.