at and
counted out five hundred francs, which he kept in his hand.

"Now--" he commanded.

"The man," I then announced calmly, "will call on me for the document
at my lodgings at the hostelry of the 'Grey Cat' to-morrow morning at
nine o'clock."

"Good," rejoined M. Geoffroy. "We shall be there."

He made no demur about giving me the five hundred francs, but half my
pleasure in receiving them vanished when I saw Theodore's bleary eyes
fixed ravenously upon them.

"Another five hundred francs," M. Geoffroy went on quietly, "will be
yours as soon as the spy is in our hands."

I did get that further five hundred of course, for M. Charles Saurez
was punctual to the minute, and M. Geoffroy was there with the police
to apprehend him. But to think that I might have had twenty
thousand--!

And I had to give Theodore fifty francs on the transaction, as he
threatened me with the police when I talked of giving him the sack.

But we were quite good friends again after that until-- But you
shall judge.

CHAPTER II

A FOOL'S PARADISE

1.

Ah! my dear Sir, I cannot tell you how poor we all were in France in
that year of grace 1816--so poor, indeed, that a dish of roast pork
was looked upon as a feast, and a new gown for the wife an unheard-of
luxury.

The war had ruined everyone. Twenty-two years! and hopeless
humiliation and defeat at the end of it. The Emperor handed over to
the English; a Bourbon sitting on the throne of France; crowds of
foreign soldiers still lording it all over the country--until the
country had paid its debts to her foreign invaders, and thousands of
our own men still straggling home through Germany and Belgium--the
remnants of Napoleon's Grand Army--ex-prisoners of war, or scattered
units who had found their weary way home at last, shoeless, coatless,
half starved and perished from cold and privations, unfit for
housework, for agriculture, or for industry, fit only to follow their
fallen hero, as they had done through a quarter of a century, to
victory and to death.

With me, Sir, business in Paris was almost at a standstill. I, who had
been the confidential agent of two kings, three democrats and one
emperor; I, who had held diplomatic threads in my hands which had
caused thrones to totter and tyrants to quake, and who had brought
more criminals and intriguers to book than any other man alive--I now
sat in my office in the Rue Daunou day after day with never a client
to darken