such hungry eyes as to wring one's heart, and
when I insisted on putting before him a slice of bacon and a glass of
wine, he fell on it like a wolf. All at once the blood came back to his
cheeks and, still eating, he began to chatter.

"You know, _pere_ Passajon," said he to me between two mouthfuls, "I
know where he is. I have seen him."

He winked his eye knowingly. I looked at him in wonder. "Who is it you
have seen, M. Francis?"

"The marquis, my master--over there in the little white house behind
Notre-Dame." (He did not use the word morgue, it is too low.) "I was
sure I should find him there. I went there first thing next morning.
There he was. Oh, well disguised, I tell you. Only his valet could
recognise him. The hair gray, the teeth gone, the wrinkles showing his
sixty-five years, which he used to hide so well. On the marble slab,
with the tap running above, I seemed to see him at his dressing-table."

"And you said nothing?"

"No. I knew his intentions on the subject for long. I let him go away
discreetly, without awakening attention, as he wished. But, all the
same, he might have given me a crust of bread before he went, after a
service of twenty years."

And on a sudden, striking the table with his fist with rage:

"When I think that if I had liked I might have been with Mora, instead
of going to Monpavon, that I might have had Louis's place. What luck he
has had! How many bags of gold he laid his hands on when his duke died!
And the wardrobe--hundreds of shirts, a dressing-gown of blue fox fur
worth more than twenty thousand francs. Like Noel, too, he must have
made his pile! He had to hurry, too, for he knew that it would stop
soon. Now there is nothing to be got in the Place Vendome. An old
policeman of a mother who manages everything. Saint-Romans is to be
sold, the pictures are to be sold, half the house to be let. It is a
real break-up."

I must confess that I could not help showing my satisfaction, for
this wretched Jansoulet is the cause of all our misfortunes. A man who
boasted of being so rich, who said so everywhere. The public bit at
it like a fish who sees the scales shine through the net. He has lost
millions, I admit, but why did he make us believe he had more? They have
arrested Bois l'Hery; they should have arrested _him_. Ah! if we had had
another expert, I am sure it would have been done. Besides, as I said to
Francis, you had only to look at this upstart of a Jansoulet to see wh