fingers like wax."

CHAPTER III.

THE OPINION OF DR. HORTEBISE.

Dr. Hortebise, who had addressed Mascarin so familiarly by his Christian
name of Baptiste, was about fifty-six years of age, but he carried his
years so well, that he always passed for forty-nine. He had a heavy pair
of red, sensual-looking lips, his hair was untinted by gray, and his
eyes still lustrous. A man who moved in the best society, eloquent in
manner, a brilliant conversationalist, and vivid in his perceptions, he
concealed under the veil of good-humored sarcasm the utmost cynicism of
mind. He was very popular and much sought after. He had but few faults,
but quite a catalogue of appalling vices. Under this Epicurean exterior
lurked, it was reported, the man of talent and the celebrated physician.
He was not a hard-working man, simply because he achieved the same
results without toil or labor. He had recently taken to homoeopathy, and
started a medical journal, which he named _The Globule_, which died at
its fifth number. His conversation made all society laugh, and he joined
in the ridicule, thus showing the sincerity of his views, for he
was never able to take the round of life seriously. To-day, however,
Mascarin, well as he knew his friend, seemed piqued at his air of
levity.

"When I asked you to come here to-day," said he, "and when I begged you
to conceal yourself in my bedroom--"

"Where I was half frozen," broke in Hortebise.

"It was," went on Mascarin, "because I desired your advice. We have
started on a serious undertaking,--an undertaking full of peril both to
you and to myself."

"Pooh! I have perfect confidence in you,--whatever you do is done well,
and you are not the man to fling away your trump cards."

"True; but I may lose the game, after all, and then----"

The doctor merely shook a large gold locket that depended from his watch
chain.

This movement seemed to annoy Mascarin a great deal. "Why do you flash
that trinket at me?" asked he. "We have known each other for five and
twenty years,--what do you mean to imply? Do you mean that the locket
contains the likeness of some one that you intend to make use of later
on? I think that you might render such a step unnecessary by giving me
your present advice and attention."

Hortebise threw himself back in his chair with an expression of
resignation. "If you want advice," remarked he, "why not apply to our
worthy friend Catenac?--he knows something of business, a