nly to know that he is within reach of us."

"But he does not seem to have mended his ways," Lisbeth remarked when
Adeline had finished her report of her visit to Baron Verneuil. "He has
taken up some little work-girl. But where can he get the money from?
I could bet that he begs of his former mistresses--Mademoiselle Jenny
Cadine or Josepha."

The Baroness trembled more severely than ever; every nerve quivered; she
wiped away the tears that rose to her eyes and looked mournfully up to
heaven.

"I cannot think that a Grand Commander of the Legion of Honor will have
fallen so low," said she.

"For his pleasure what would he not do?" said Lisbeth. "He robbed the
State, he will rob private persons, commit murder--who knows?"

"Oh, Lisbeth!" cried the Baroness, "keep such thoughts to yourself."

At this moment Louise came up to the family group, now increased by the
arrival of the two Hulot children and little Wenceslas to see if their
grandmother's pockets did not contain some sweetmeats.

"What is it, Louise?" asked one and another.

"A man who wants to see Mademoiselle Fischer."

"Who is the man?" asked Lisbeth.

"He is in rags, mademoiselle, and covered with flue like a
mattress-picker; his nose is red, and he smells of brandy.--He is one of
those men who work half of the week at most."

This uninviting picture had the effect of making Lisbeth hurry into the
courtyard of the house in the Rue Louis-le-Grand, where she found a man
smoking a pipe colored in a style that showed him an artist in tobacco.

"Why have you come here, Pere Chardin?" she asked. "It is understood
that you go, on the first Saturday in every month, to the gate of the
Hotel Marneffe, Rue Barbet-de-Jouy. I have just come back after waiting
there for five hours, and you did not come."

"I did go there, good and charitable lady!" replied the mattress-picker.
"But there was a game at pool going on at the Cafe des Savants, Rue du
Cerf-Volant, and every man has his fancy. Now, mine is billiards. If it
wasn't for billiards, I might be eating off silver plate. For, I tell
you this," and he fumbled for a scrap of paper in his ragged trousers
pocket, "it is billiards that leads on to a dram and plum-brandy.--It
is ruinous, like all fine things, in the things it leads to. I know
your orders, but the old 'un is in such a quandary that I came on to
forbidden grounds.--If the hair was all hair, we might sleep sound on
it; but it is mixed. God is not