ay, Sir--a happy one for me, a blissful one for Mme. Ratichon--I
have been able, thanks to the foresight of an all-wise Providence, to
gratify my bucolic tastes. I live now, Sir, amidst my flowers, with my
dog and my canary and Mme. Ratichon, smiling with kindly indulgence on
the struggles and the blunders of my younger colleagues, oft consulted
by them in matters that require special tact and discretion. I sit and
dream now beneath the shade of a vine-clad arbour of those glorious
days of long ago, when kings and emperors placed the destiny of their
inheritance in my hands, when autocrats and dictators came to me for
assistance and advice, and the name of Hector Ratichon stood for
everything that was most astute and most discreet. And if at times a
gentle sigh of regret escapes my lips, Mme. Ratichon--whose thinness
is ever my despair, for I admire comeliness, Sir, as being more
womanly--Mme. Ratichon, I say, comes to me with the gladsome news that
dinner is served; and though she is not all that I could wish in the
matter of the culinary arts, yet she can fry a cutlet passably, and
one of her brothers is a wholesale wine merchant of excellent
reputation.

It was soon after my connexion with that abominable Marquis de
Firmin-Latour that I first made the acquaintance of the present Mme.
Ratichon, under somewhat peculiar circumstances.

I remember it was on the first day of April in the year 1817 that M.
Rochez--Fernand Rochez was his exact name--came to see me at my office
in the Rue Daunou, and the date proved propitious, as you will
presently see. How M. Rochez came to know of my gifts and powers, I
cannot tell you. He never would say. He had heard of me through a
friend, was all that he vouchsafed to say.

Theodore had shown him in. Ah! have I not mentioned the fact that I
had forgiven Theodore his lies and his treachery, and taken him back
to my bosom and to my board? My sensitive heart had again got the
better of my prudence, and Theodore was installed once more in the
antechamber of my apartments in the Rue Daunou, and was, as
heretofore, sharing with me all the good things that I could afford.
So there he was on duty on that fateful first of April which was
destined to be the turning-point of my destiny. And he showed M. de
Rochez in.

At once I knew my man--the type, I mean. Immaculately dressed, scented
and befrilled, haughty of manner and nonchalant of speech, M. Rochez
had the word "adventurer" writ all