, at daybreak, Theodose went to the office of the banker
of the poor, to see the effect produced upon his enemy by the punctual
payment of the night before, and to make another effort to get rid of
his hornet.

He found Cerizet standing up, in conference with a woman, and he
received an imperative sign to keep at a distance and not to interrupt
the interview. The barrister was therefore reduced to conjectures as to
the importance of this woman, an importance revealed by the eager
look on the face of the lender "by the little week." Theodose had
a presentiment, though a very vague one, that the upshot of this
conference would have some influence on Cerizet's own arrangements, for
he suddenly beheld on that crafty countenance the change produced by a
dawning hope.

"But, my dear mamma Cardinal--"

"Yes, my good monsieur--"

"What is it you want--?"

"It must be decided--"

These beginnings, or these ends of sentences were the only gleams of
light that the animated conversation, carried on in the lowest tones
with lip to ear and ear to lip, conveyed to the motionless witness,
whose attention was fixed on Madame Cardinal.

Madame Cardinal was one of Cerizet's earliest clients; she peddled fish.
If Parisians know these creations peculiar to their soil, foreigners
have no suspicion of their existence; and Mere Cardinal--technologically
speaking, of course, deserved all the interest she excited in Theodose.
So many women of her species may be met with in the streets that the
passers-by give them no more attention than they give to the three
thousand pictures of the Salon. But as she stood in Cerizet's office
the Cardinal had all the value of an isolated masterpiece; she was a
complete and perfect type of her species.

The woman was mounted on muddy sabots; but her feet, carefully wrapped
in gaiters, were still further protected by stout and thick-ribbed
stockings. Her cotton gown, adorned with a glounce of mud, bore the
imprint of the strap which supported the fish-basket. Her principal
garment was a shawl of what was called "rabbit's-hair cashmere," the two
ends of which were knotted behind, above her bustle--for we must
needs employ a fashionable word to express the effect produced by the
transversal pressure of the basket upon her petticoats, which projected
below it, in shape like a cabbage. A printed cotton neckerchief, of the
coarsest description, gave to view a red neck, ribbed and lined like the
surface of a