“To be sure, the vintage must have commenced,” he said.

“Well?”

“But that only lasts a fortnight, and then comes winter.  And winter is no man’s friend:  it’s my enemy.  I know I have been without a place to lie down when it has been freezing to split stones, and the snow was a foot deep.  Oh! here they have stoves, and the Board gives very warm clothes.”

“Yes; but there are no merry evenings here, Trumence, eh?  None of those merry evenings, when the hot wine goes round, and you tell the girls all sorts of stories, while you are shelling peas, or shucking corn?”

“Oh!  I know.  I do enjoy those evenings.  But the cold!  Where should I go when I have not a cent?”

That was exactly where Jacques wanted to lead him.

“I have money,” he said.

“I know you have.”

“You do not think I would let you go off with empty pockets?  I would give you any thing you may ask.”

“Really?” cried the vagrant.

And looking at Jacques with a mingled expression of hope, surprise, and delight, he added,—­

“You see I should want a good deal.  Winter is long.  I should want—­let me see, I should want fifty Napoleons!”

“You shall have a hundred,” said Jacques.

Trumence’s eyes began to dance.  He probably had a vision of those irresistible taverns at Rochefort, where he had led such a merry life.  But he could not believe such happiness to be real.

“You are not making fun of me?” he asked timidly.

“Do you want the whole sum at once?” replied Jacques.  “Wait.”

He drew from the drawer in his table a thousand-franc note.  But, at the sight of the note, the vagrant drew back the hand which he had promptly stretched out to take the money.

“Oh! that kind?  No!  I know what that paper is worth:  I have had some of them myself.  But what could I do with one of them now?  It would not be worth more to me than a leaf of a tree; for, at the first place I should want it changed, they would arrest me.”

“That is easily remedied.  By to-morrow I shall have gold, or small notes, so you can have your choice.”

This time Trumence clapped his hands in great joy.

“Give me some of one kind, and some of the other,” he said, “and I am your man!  Hurrah for liberty!  Where is that wall that we are to go through?”

“I will show you to-morrow; and till them, Trumence, silence.”

It was only the next day that Blangin showed Jacques the place where the wall had least thickness.  It was in a kind of cellar, where nobody ever came, and where cast-off tools were stored away.

“In order that you may not be interrupted,” said the jailer, “I will ask two of my comrades to dine with me, and I shall invite the sergeant on duty.  They will enjoy themselves, and never think of the prisoners.  My wife will keep a sharp lookout; and, if any of the rounds should come this way, she would warn you, and quick, quick, you would be back in your room.”