“Have you anyone for the Dépôt today?” asked the driver from his high seat on the prison van. He was on a collecting journey as is usual every evening, when the meat wagons, as they are vulgarly called, pass to the various police stations of Paris to pick up the individuals arrested during the day.

“Two of ’em,” answered the police sergeant on duty.

Whilst official papers were being interchanged and forms were being filled in according to rule, policemen went to the cells to bring out the two prisoners to be despatched to the Dépôt. The first to pass out was the costermonger. He was straightway put into one of the narrow compartments in the wagon. Then it was the turn of the tipsy and obstreperous workman, who was now silent, moody, and apparently more sober. “Hop it now!” cried the policeman. “Come along with you, you miserable drunk!... March now! Hoof it!” As the “drunk” lurched against the partition of the narrow passageway running up the middle of the meat wagon, the policeman shoved him into one of the compartments, carefully shutting the little door on him and fastening it.

“My word!” he exclaimed. “That fellow wouldn’t have been capable of walking three steps in an hour.” As the driver climbed to his seat on the van, the policeman called out, with a laugh:

“You’ve got a passenger inside who’s partial to wine!... It’s a shame to see a man in such a swinish state.” This same policeman would have been surprised, could he have seen the wine-sot’s face when the meat wagon started rolling and started off in the direction of the Point-du-Jour police station, the last on the round to be visited...The “drunk” whom one push had sufficed to plant on his seat, had briskly drawn himself upright and was smiling broadly, a wide noiseless smile!

What a joke!... And what a damned good actor I should have made! thought Jérôme Fandor, giving himself a mental hug of satisfaction... Ah! They arrest the individuals I want to set talking!... The police imagine they are going to push in first and find out the answer to the riddle!...Well, we shall see!

Fandor was listening intently and trying to discover from the movements of the van what street they were passing along.

Smooth going... evidently we are still in the rue de la Pompe, so I have about a quarter of an hour more of it!

Fandor examined the tiny cell in which he had been imprisoned of his own free will.

Not much to be said for it! ran his thoughts. There’s scarcely room to sit... impossible to stand up or turn round... nearly dark... and precious little air comes in through those wooden shutters... I shouldn’t think there ever had been an escape from these vans!

Fandor smiled broadly.