rs, was the
gnawing rodent of the whole faubourg.

"Well," said Cerizet as Dutocq opened his door, "Theodose has just come
in; let us go to his room."

The advocate of the poor was fain to allow the two men to pass before
him.

All three crossed a little room, the tiled floor of which, covered with
a coating of red encaustic, shone in the light; thence into a little
salon with crimson curtains and mahogany furniture, covered with
red Utrecht velvet; the wall opposite the window being occupied by
book-shelves containing a legal library. The chimney-piece was covered
with vulgar ornaments, a clock with four columns in mahogany, and
candelabra under glass shades. The study, where the three men seated
themselves before a soft-coal fire, was the study of a lawyer just
beginning to practise. The furniture consisted of a desk, an armchair,
little curtains of green silk at the windows, a green carpet, shelves
for lawyer's boxes, and a couch, above which hung an ivory Christ on
a velvet background. The bedroom, kitchen, and rest of the apartment
looked out upon the courtyard.

"Well," said Cerizet, "how are things going? Are we getting on?"

"Yes," replied Theodose.

"You must admit," cried Dutocq, "that my idea was a famous one, in
laying hold of that imbecile of a Thuillier?"

"Yes, but I'm not behindhand either," exclaimed Cerizet. "I have come
now to show you a way to put the thumbscrews on the old maid and make
her spin like a teetotum. We mustn't deceive ourselves; Mademoiselle
Thuillier is the head and front of everything in this affair; if we get
her on our side the town is won. Let us say little, but that little to
the point, as becomes strong men with each other. Claparon, you know, is
a fool; he'll be all his life what he always was,--a cat's-paw. Just now
he is lending his name to a notary in Paris, who is concerned with a
lot of contractors, and they are all--notary and masons--on the point of
ruin. Claparon is going headlong into it. He never yet was bankrupt; but
there's a first time for everything. He is hidden now in my hovel in the
rue des Poules, where no one will ever find him. He is desperate, and
he hasn't a penny. Now, among the five or six houses built by these
contractors, which have to be sold, there's a jewel of a house, built of
freestone, in the neighborhood of the Madeleine,--a frontage laced like
a melon, with beautiful carvings,--but not being finished, it will have
to be sold for what it