judge by the size and length of his limbs, might
have beaten us both, with our hand tied behind
him. But he began, instead, to blubber like a
great baby, about his "vamille."

I explained my loss, but the little policeman
seemed to know all about it already. "Ça y est!"
"That's it!" seemed his favourite mode of
expression. He chucked Mynheer van Prig almost
caressingly under the chin, but shook his head,
and said the money was not there. As for the
porte-monnaie, it was settled that Prig had thrown
it away, as a preliminary proceeding. "So,
allons," said the little policeman blithely, "en
route!"

He first, with much formality, went through
the ceremony of taking the big blubbering
Belgian into custody. This he effected, by drawing
a tapering little spit of a rapier and collaring
Mynheer van Prig—having very nearly to stand
on tiptoe to do it. We were admitted into
Brussels by the men on duty at the Porte de
Cologne, where the policeman showed his prize,
and was complimented by the officials in Flemish.
To me he spoke very decent French.

By this time I was heartily sick of Mynheer
van Prig, and wanted, if possible, to get my
money back, and go to bed. I made proposals
that P. should restore the gems, or rather coins,
of which he had robbed me, should receive a
kicking, and depart in peace; but this was a plan
of which, though Van assented, the policeman
would not hear. We must go before the
commissary. It was a serious affair.

"And one that will be five years for thee,
Gewaert," observed the policeman, cheerfully,
to his prisoner, as we clattered down the empty
streets.

The Mynheer, whose Christian or surname
might have been Gewaert, but who to me could
be nothing but Van Prig, only gave some
inarticulate meanings by way of reply.

"Bad seed, bad grain," the minister of justice
went on, sententiously. "Thy mother stole cat-
skins. Thy father wore rings on his legs for
seven and ten. Thy sister is inscrite. Bad
subjects, all. But Monsieur le Commissaire is about
to rub thine ears for thee, galopin."

It is a fact, that when we reached the bureau
of the commissary of police, and that functionary
had got out of bed, and had come down stairs to
his murky office in a flannel dressing-gown and a
velvet skull-cap, and the charge had been briefly
explained to him, that he so far put into practice
the figurative language of the policeman concerning
the rubbing of Mynheer van Prig's ears, as to
seize him by the two shoulders and shake that
rascal violently

"Ah gredin! Ah cancre! Ah pied-plat! Ah
saute-ruisseau! Ah voyou!" exclaimed the
commissary, shaking his head and Mynheer van Prig
at the same time. "We have got thee at last,
have we? Thou wilt sell forged contremarques
on the Place de la Monnaie, wilt thou? Thou
wilt be a colporteur of seditious pamphlets?
Now we have thee as a filou. Bon. Let him
be peeled (qu'on l'épluche)," he concluded.

And upon my word they proceeded to "peel"
Mynheer van Prig; and very much like a forked
radish he looked when every rag—and they were
few in number—he had on, was peeled off. Four
five-franc pieces, presumably mine, and the whole
of my "bonny money," of which I had "préalablement"
given a description to the commissary,
were found in the left sabot of Mynheer van
Prig. There could be no doubt about that
person's guilt.

The defence he pleaded, varied in its nature.
First, he said that he had never seen me before;
then, that he was as innocent as the child unborn;
then, that it was somebody else; then, that I had
given him the money to drink the health of the
martyrs of Belgian liberty; finally, he burst into
a fresh flood of tears, and virtually confessing bis
offence, called it a "petite indiscrétion."

The commissary stigmatised his "voie de
défense" as "odious." Mynheer van Prig was
permitted to resume his peel, and was then locked
up somewhere underground, I presume. I
signed a number of documents, bade the commissary
good night, and was free to depart: when I
made the agreeable discovery that my latch-key
had disappeared. Either Van had stolen that too,
and had thrown it away, or I had lost it during my
short struggle with him. Most of the houses in
Brussels have no concierges, but have street
doors in the English fashion. I did not like to
knock up the hairdresser's family; I was doubtful
as to my reception—for the funds taken from
Van Prig had been rigorously impounded by the
commissary—at an hotel; and I was very glad,
as an alternative to walking about the streets, to
accept the offer of the policeman to make interest
with the chef d'escouade at the guard-house at
the Hôtel de Ville. There was, in an immense
apartment, a roaring fire in an antique chimney
here, and I dozed on a wooden camp-bed till
seven in the morning: now fancying that I saw
the Duke of Alva warming his toes by the blaze:
now, that the nodding police-agents were the night
watch that Rembrandt painted.

For a whole fortnight afterwards, I heard
nothing whatever of Mynheer van Prig. The
commissary had told me that when justice required
my presence I should receive a "sommation;"
and I dreaded the arrival of the missive. For
fourteen days, however, as I have said, there
were no signs of proceedings in re Prig. Yet the
Mynheer haunted me. I had never prosecuted
anybody before, and I hope I never shall again.
I groaned in the spirit perpetually, about
Mynheer van Prig. By night and by day his gaunt
figure, his fat white face, floated before me. Prig
was my Bottle Imp; and it was with a sensation,
after all this horror, approaching relief, that on
returning home one day, I learned from the
landlady that a huissier had been after me with a
sommation.
I think the entire hairdresser's family must