ly child!" replied her father. "The fact that a man is handsome
is not always a sign of goodness. Young men gifted with an attractive
appearance meet with no obstacles at the beginning of life, so they make
no use of any talent; they are corrupted by the advances made to them
by society, and they have to pay interest later for their
attractiveness!--What I should like for you is what the middle classes,
the rich, and the fools leave unholpen and unprotected----"

"What, father?"

"An unrecognized man of talent. But, there, child; I have it in my power
to hunt through every garret in Paris, and carry out your programme by
offering for your affection a man as handsome as the young scamp you
speak of; but a man of promise, with a future before him destined to
glory and fortune.--By the way, I was forgetting. I must have a whole
flock of nephews, and among them there must be one worthy of you!--I
will write, or get some one to write to Provence."

A strange coincidence! At this moment a young man, half-dead of hunger
and fatigue, who had come on foot from the department of Vaucluse--a
nephew of Pere Canquoelle's in search of his uncle, was entering Paris
through the Barriere de l'Italie. In the day-dreams of the family,
ignorant of this uncle's fate, Peyrade had supplied the text for many
hopes; he was supposed to have returned from India with millions!
Stimulated by these fireside romances, this grand-nephew, named
Theodore, had started on a voyage round the world in quest of this
eccentric uncle.

After enjoying for some hours the joys of paternity, Peyrade, his hair
washed and dyed--for his powder was a disguise--dressed in a stout,
coarse, blue frock-coat buttoned up to the chin, and a black cloak, shod
in strong, thick-soled boots, furnished himself with a private card and
walked slowly along the Avenue Gabriel, where Contenson, dressed as
an old costermonger woman, met him in front of the gardens of the
Elysee-Bourbon.

"Monsieur de Saint-Germain," said Contenson, giving his old chief the
name he was officially known by, "you have put me in the way of making
five hundred pieces (francs); but what I came here for was to tell you
that that damned Baron, before he gave me the shiners, had been to ask
questions at the house (the Prefecture of Police)."

"I shall want you, no doubt," replied Peyrade. "Look up numbers 7, 10,
and 21; we can employ those men without any one finding it out, either
at the Police Mini