s paper."

"That is what I came to tell you."

"Perhaps you also came to settle the little account we have together."

"Messieurs," said Minard, "I see that this is a business interview; I
shall therefore take leave of you."

As soon as Minard had left the room, la Peyrade pulled out his
pocket-book.

"Here are ten thousand francs," he said, "which I will beg you to remit
to Mademoiselle Brigitte; and here, also, is the bond by which you
secured the payment of twenty-five thousand francs to Madame Lambert;
that sum I have now paid in full, and here is the receipt."

"Very good, monsieur," said Thuillier.

La Peyrade bowed and went away.

"Serpent!" said Thuillier as he watched him go.

"Cerizet said the right thing," thought la Peyrade,--"a pompous
imbecile!"

The blow struck at Thuillier's candidacy was mortal, but Minard did not
profit by it. While the pair were contending for votes, a government
man, an aide-de-camp to the king, arrived with his hands full of tobacco
licenses and other electoral small change, and, like the third thief,
he slipped between the two who were thumping each other, and carried off
the booty.

It is needless to say that Brigitte did not get her farm in Beauce. That
was only a mirage, by help of which Thuillier was enticed out of Paris
long enough for la Peyrade to deal his blow,--a service rendered to the
government on the one hand, but also a precious vengeance for the many
humiliations he had undergone.

Thuillier had certainly some suspicions as to the complicity of Cerizet,
but that worthy managed to justify himself; and by manoeuvring the
sale of the "Echo de la Bievre," now become a nightmare to the luckless
owner, he ended by appearing as white as snow.

The paper was secretly bought up by Corentin, and the late opposition
sheet became a "canard" sold on Sundays in the wine-shops and concocted
in the dens of the police.

CHAPTER XVII. IN THE EXERCISE OF HIS FUNCTIONS

About two months after the scene in which la Peyrade had been convinced
that through a crime of his past life his future was irrevocably
settled, he (being now married to his victim, who was beginning to have
lucid intervals, though the full return of her reason would not take
place until the occasion indicated by the doctors) was sitting one
morning with the head of the police in the latter's office. Taking
part in the work of the department, the young man was serving an
apprenticeship under th