tached gentleman morose and careworn, who demanded a deposit and
promised to find the individual.

The ex-police official soon wrote to inform him that very onerous
investigations had been commenced and asked for fresh funds. Maurice
gave him no more and resolved to carry on the search himself. Imagining,
not without some likelihood, that the angel would associate with the
wretched, seeing that he had no money, and with the exiled of all
nations--like himself, revolutionaries--he visited the lodging-houses at
St. Ouen, at la Chapelle, Montmartre, and the Barriere d'Italie. He
sought him in the doss-houses, public-houses where they give you plates
of tripe, and others where you can get a sausage for three sous; he
searched for him in the cellars at the Market and at Pere Momie's.

Maurice visited the restaurants where nihilists and anarchists take
their meals. There he came across men dressed as women, gloomy and
wild-looking youths, and blue-eyed octogenarians who laughed like little
children. He observed, asked questions, was taken for a spy, had a knife
thrust into him by a very beautiful woman, and the very next day
continued his search in beer-houses, lodging-houses, houses of ill-fame,
gambling-hells down by the fortifications, at the receivers of stolen
goods, and among the "apaches."

Seeing him thus pale, harassed, and silent, his mother grew worried.

"We must find him a wife," she said. "It is a pity that Mademoiselle de
la Verdeliere has not a bigger fortune."

Abbe Patouille did not hide his anxiety.

"This child," he said, "is passing through a moral crisis."

"I am more inclined to think," replied Monsieur Rene d'Esparvieu, "that
he is under the influence of some bad woman. We must find him an
occupation which will absorb him and flatter his vanity. I might get him
appointed Secretary to the Committee for the Preservation of Country
Churches, or Consulting Counsel to the Syndicate of Catholic Plumbers."

CHAPTER XVII

WHEREIN WE LEARN THAT SOPHAR, NO LESS EAGER FOR GOLD THAN
MAMMON, LOOKED UPON HIS HEAVENLY HOME LESS FAVOURABLY THAN
UPON FRANCE, A COUNTRY BLESSED WITH A SAVINGS BANK AND LOAN
DEPARTMENTS, AND WHEREIN WE SEE, YET ONCE AGAIN, THAT WHOSO
IS POSSESSED OF THIS WORLD'S GOODS FEARS THE EVIL EFFECTS OF
ANY CHANGE

Meanwhile Arcade led a life of obscure toil. He worked at a printer's in
the Rue St. Benoit, and lived in an attic in the Rue Mouffetard.