s that of a
turkey-cock, stood his little head, covered with coarse red hair,
cut very short. He wore a heavy beard, trimmed in the form of a fan.
His large, full-moon face was divided in two by a nose as flat as a
Kalmuck's, and illuminated by two small eyes, in which could be read
the most thorough duplicity.

Seeing M. de Tregars and M. Costeclar engaged in conversation,

"Why! you know each other?" he said.

M. de Tregars advanced a step,

"We are even intimate friends," he replied. "And it is very lucky
that we should have met. I am brought here by the same matter as
our dear Costeclar; and I was just explaining to him that he has
been too hasty, and that it would be best to wait three or four days
longer."

"That's just what I told him," echoed the honorable financier.

Maxence understood only one thing,--that M. de Tregars had
penetrated M. Costeclar's designs; and he could not sufficiently
admire his presence of mind, and his skill in grasping an unexpected
opportunity.

"Fortunately there is nothing done yet," added M. Latterman.

"And it is yet time to alter what has been agreed on," said M. de
Tregars. And, addressing himself to Costeclar,

"Come," he added, "we'll fix things with M. Latterman."

But the other, who remembered the scene in the Rue St. Gilles, and
who had his own reasons to be alarmed, would sooner have jumped out
of the window.

"I am expected," he stammered. "Arrange matters without me."

"Then you give me carte blanche?"

Ah, if the brilliant financier had dared! But he felt upon him such
threatening eyes, that he dared not even make a gesture of denial.

"Whatever you do will be satisfactory," he said in the tone of a
man who sees himself lost.

And, as he was going out of the door, M. de Tregars stepped into
M. Latterman's private office. He remained only five minutes; and
when he joined Maxence, whom he had begged to wait for him,

"I think that we have got them," he said as they walked off.

Their next visit was to M. Saint Pavin, at the office of "The
Financial Pilot." Every one must have seen at least one copy of
that paper with its ingenious vignette, representing a bold mariner
steering a boat, filled with timid passengers, towards the harbor
of Million, over a stormy sea, bristling with the rocks of failure
and the shoals of ruin. The office of "The Pilot" is, in fact,
less a newspaper office than a sort of general business agency.

As at M. Latterm