g a
number of flashy gold chains around her fat neck.

She had bright eyes and white teeth; but, alas, a red nose. Of all her
weaknesses, and Heaven knows she had indulged in every variety, only one
remained; she loved a good dinner, washed down with plenty of good wine.

She also loved her husband; and, about the time M. Patrigent was leaving
the hospital, she began to be worried that her "little man" had not
returned to dinner. She was about to sit down without him, when the
hotel-boy cried out:

"Here is monsieur."

And Fanferlot appeared in person.

Three years before, Fanferlot had kept a little office of secret
intelligence; Mme. Alexandre was a trader without a license in perfumery
and toilet articles, and, finding it necessary to watch some of her
suspicious customers, engaged Fanferlot's services; this was the origin
of their acquaintance.

If they went through the marriage ceremony for the good of the mayoralty
and the church, it was because they imagined it would, like a baptism,
wash out the sins of the past.

Upon this momentous day, Fanferlot gave up his secret intelligence
office, and entered the police, where he had already been occasionally
employed, and Mme. Alexandre retired from trade.

Uniting their savings, they hired and furnished the "Archangel,"
which they were now carrying on prosperously well, esteemed by their
neighbors, who were ignorant of Fanferlot's connection with the police
force.

"Why, how late you are, my little man!" she exclaimed, as she dropped
her knife and fork, and rushed forward to embrace him.

He received her caresses with an air of abstraction.

"My back is broken," he said. "I have been the whole day playing
billiards with Evariste, M. Fauvel's valet, and allowed him to win as
often as he wished, a man who does not know what 'the pool' is! I became
acquainted with him yesterday, and now I am his best friend. If I wish
to enter M. Fauvel's service in Antonin's place, I can rely upon M.
Evariste's good word."

"What, you be an office messenger? you?"

"Of course I would. How else am I to get an opportunity of studying my
characters, if I am not on the spot to watch them all the time?"

"Then the valet gave you no news?"

"He gave me none that I could make use of, and yet I turned him inside
out, like a glove. This banker is a remarkable man; you don't often meet
with one of his sort nowadays. Evariste says he has not a single vice,
not even a little defec