pond where people have skated. Her head was covered in a
yellow silk foulard, twined in a manner that was rather picturesque.
Short and stout, and ruddy of skin, Mere Cardinal probably drank her
little drop of brandy in the morning. She had once been handsome. The
Halle had formerly reproached her, in the boldness of its figurative
speech, for doing "a double day's-work in the twenty-four." Her voice,
in order to reduce itself to the diapason of ordinary conversation, was
obliged to stifle its sound as other voices do in a sick-room; but at
such times it came thick and muffled, from a throat accustomed to send
to the farthest recesses of the highest garret the names of the fish in
their season. Her nose, a la Roxelane, her well-cut lips, her blue eyes,
and all that formerly made up her beauty, was now buried in folds of
vigorous flesh which told of the habits and occupations of an outdoor
life. The stomach and bosom were distinguished for an amplitude worthy
of Rubens.

"Do you want to make me lie in the straw?" she said to Cerizet. "What
do I care for the Toupilliers? Ain't I a Toupillier myself? What do you
want to do with them, those Toupilliers?"

This savage outburst was hastily repressed by Cerizet, who uttered a
prolonged "Hush-sh!" such as all conspirators obey.

"Well, go and find out all you can about it, and come back to me," said
Cerizet, pushing the woman toward the door, and whispering, as he did
so, a few words in her ear.

"Well, my dear friend," said Theodose to Cerizet, "you have got your
money?"

"Yes," returned Cerizet "we have measured our claws, they are the same
length, the same strength, and the same sharpness. What next?"

"Am I to tell Dutocq that you received, last night, twenty-five thousand
francs?"

"Oh! my dear friend, not a word, if you love me!" cried Cerizet.

"Listen," said Theodose. "I must know, once for all, what you want. I
am positively determined not to remain twenty-four hours longer on the
gridiron where you have got me. Cheat Dutocq if you will; I am utterly
indifferent to that; but I intend that you and I shall come to an
understanding. It is a fortune that I have paid you, twenty-five
thousand francs, and you must have earned ten thousand more in your
business; it is enough to make you an honest man. Cerizet, if you will
leave me in peace, if you won't prevent my marriage with Mademoiselle
Colleville, I shall certainly be king's attorney-general, or something
of t