uble
soled shoes that creaked like an abbe's; he always held a fourteen franc
silk hat in his hand.

"'I am old and I have no children,' he took occasion to confide to the
young lady some few days after Cerizet's visit to Maxime. 'I hold my
relations in horror. They are peasants born to work in the fields. Just
imagine it, I came up from the country with six francs in my pocket, and
made my fortune here. I am not proud. A pretty woman is my equal. Now
would it not be nicer to be Mme. Croizeau for some years to come than
to do a Count's pleasure for a twelvemonth? He will go off and leave
you some time or other; and when that day comes, you will think of me...
your servant, my pretty lady!'

"All this was simmering below the surface. The slightest approach at
love-making was made quite on the sly. Not a soul suspected that the
trim little old fogy was smitten with Antonia; and so prudent was
the elderly lover, that no rival could have guessed anything from his
behavior in the reading-room. For a couple of months Croizeau watched
the retired custom-house official; but before the third month was out
he had good reason to believe that his suspicions were groundless. He
exerted his ingenuity to scrape an acquaintance with Denisart, came up
with him in the street, and at length seized his opportunity to remark,
'It is a fine day, sir!'

"Whereupon the retired official responded with, 'Austerlitz weather,
sir. I was there myself--I was wounded indeed, I won my Cross on that
glorious day.'

"And so from one thing to another the two drifted wrecks of the Empire
struck up an acquaintance. Little Croizeau was attached to the Empire
through his connection with Napoleon's sisters. He had been their
coach-builder, and had frequently dunned them for money; so he gave
out that he 'had had relations with the Imperial family.' Maxime, duly
informed by Antonia of the 'nice old man's' proposals (for so the aunt
called Croizeau), wished to see him. Cerizet's declaration of war had
so far taken effect that he of the yellow kid gloves was studying the
position of every piece, however insignificant, upon the board; and
it so happened that at the mention of that 'nice old man,' an ominous
tinkling sounded in his ears. One evening, therefore, Maxime seated
himself among the book-shelves in the dimly lighted back room,
reconnoitred the seven or eight customers through the chink between the
green curtains, and took the little coach-builder's