“That idiot would never get done with his stories about motor-cars, and all that stuff and rubbish – what’s that to us? But – keep your ears open now, Mimile; it seems there are still fifteen litres of petrol in the tank, and that would take it a long way, for the motor consumes very little.... But this shanty has got to stop about five hundred yards from here, at the corner of the rue de Monceau and the rue de Téhéran... it’s by that way Casimir will take his Baroness back from the ball.... Well, what you have to do is to take fourteen litres and a half from that tank and pitch them in the gutter!... When Casimir finds that his petrol has given out, he will have to go in search of more... it’s during his absence that we will work the trick on the pretty Princess – we’ll perform an operation on her, and amputate her – jewellery – the whole lot!

The Beard drew from under his blouse an empty bottle, which he had stolen in the tavern.

“Hero’s your measure! Count carefully fourteen litres and a half – that done, wait quietly till Casimir turns up: your part in the story will be forty sous, and not to rouse his suspicions; then, while he goes up the avenue de Valois to take up the Princess, you and Ernestine have to gallop off to the corner of the rue do Monceau and the rue de Téhéran, then... wait!”

Mimile, with the agility of a monkey and the ability of a first-rate chauffeur – for there was nothing he did not know in the way of applied mechanics, as became an aviator – executed to the letter his accomplice’s orders.

The Beard meanwhile had returned to the tavern and Casimir.Suddenly, all was activity in the world of carriages and coachmen! The great ball was drawing to its end.

Casimir was once more in possession of his motor, and had generously tipped his understudy: thereupon the hooligan had made off as fast as his legs could carry him. Ernestine joined him at the appointed spot: there the two rogues waited.“Listen!” cried big Ernestine some fifteen minutes later. She stared in the direction of the boulevard Malesherbes, with neck outstretched and straining eyeballs.