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OF CURIOSITY.
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he knew not what to reply, for he did not understand the meaning of this menace. The Abbé's valet had meanwhile been sent for. The magistrate was confident that by confronting him with the prisoner, he should confound the latter. The valet was introduced, and the magistrate, in a tone of scornful triumph, asked, "Do you know this man?"—"O yes! it is John, my valet," answered the Abbé, overjoyed to behold his faithful servant once more. This explanation somewhat staggered the magistrate; it did not at all agree with the report of the officer who had apprehended the Abbé, and who had described him as a notorious pickpocket, for whom he had long been on the watch.

The Abbé was ordered to withdraw, and the valet was then examined. His statement coincided exactly with that previously given by his master. It was, therefore, evident that curiosity alone, and not a criminal motive, had induced the old gentleman to assume this disguise. Under these circumstances, the magistrate could do no other than liberate the prisoner; but before he dismissed the Abbé, he read him a severe lecture on his conduct as highly unbecoming in an ecclesiastic.

Unluckily this adventure caused the chief of the police to make farther inquiries concerning the Abbé, and he learned that his religious

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