ho pays him most, the debtor
or the creditor."

"The more rascally a business is, the more honor it needs. I'm for him
who pays me best," continued Fromenteau addressing Gaillard. "You want
to recover fifty thousand francs and you talk farthings to your means
of action. Give me five hundred francs and your man is pinched to-night,
for we spotted him yesterday!"

"Five hundred francs for you alone!" cried Theodore Gaillard.

"Lizette wants a shawl," said the spy, not a muscle of his face moving.
"I call her Lizette because of Beranger."

"You have a Lizette, and you stay in such a business!" cried the
virtuous Gazonal.

"It is amusing! People may cry up the pleasures of hunting and fishing
as much as they like but to stalk a man in Paris is far better fun."

"Certainly," said Gazonal, reflectively, speaking to himself, "they must
have great talent."

"If I were to enumerate the qualities which make a man remarkable in our
vocation," said Fromenteau, whose rapid glance had enabled him to fathom
Gazonal completely, "you'd think I was talking of a man of genius.
First, we must have the eyes of a lynx; next, audacity (to tear into
houses like bombs, accost the servants as if we knew them, and propose
treachery--always agreed to); next, memory, sagacity, invention (to make
schemes, conceived rapidly, never the same--for spying must be guided
by the characters and habits of the persons spied upon; it is a gift
of heaven); and, finally, agility, vigor. All these facilities and
qualities, monsieur, are depicted on the door of the Gymnase-Amoros as
Virtue. Well, we must have them all, under pain of losing the salaries
given us by the State, the rue de Jerusalem, or the minister of
Commerce."

"You certainly seem to me a remarkable man," said Gazonal.

Fromenteau looked at the provincial without replying, without betraying
the smallest sign of feeling, and departed, bowing to no one,--a trait
of real genius.

"Well, cousin, you have now seen the police incarnate," said Leon to
Gazonal.

"It has something the effect of a dinner-pill," said the worthy
provincial, while Gaillard and Bixiou were talking together in a low
voice.

"I'll give you an answer to-night at Carabine's," said Gaillard aloud,
re-seating himself at his desk without seeing or bowing to Gazonal.

"He is a rude fellow!" cried the Southerner as they left the room.

"His paper has twenty-two thousand subscribers," said Leon de Lora.
"He is one of th