understood that if Cornelius detected him,
he would not allow so inquisitive a person to remain in his house. He
contented himself, therefore, by looking first at the egg and then at
the old woman, occasionally contemplating his future master.

Louis XI.'s silversmith resembled that monarch. He had even acquired the
same gestures, as often happens where persons dwell together in a sort
of intimacy. The thick eyebrows of the Fleming almost covered his eyes;
but by raising them a little he could flash out a lucid, penetrating,
powerful glance, the glance of men habituated to silence, and to
whom the phenomenon of the concentration of inward forces has become
familiar. His thin lips, vertically wrinkled, gave him an air of
indescribable craftiness. The lower part of his face bore a vague
resemblance to the muzzle of a fox, but his lofty, projecting forehead,
with many lines, showed great and splendid qualities and a nobility
of soul, the springs of which had been lowered by experience until the
cruel teachings of life had driven it back into the farthest recesses of
this most singular human being. He was certainly not an ordinary
miser; and his passion covered, no doubt, extreme enjoyments and secret
conceptions.

"What is the present rate of Venetian sequins?" he said abruptly to his
future apprentice.

"Three-quarters at Brussels; one in Ghent."

"What is the freight on the Scheldt?"

"Three sous parisis."

"Any news at Ghent?"

"The brother of Lieven d'Herde is ruined."

"Ah!"

After giving vent to that exclamation, the old man covered his knee with
the skirt of his dalmatian, a species of robe made of black velvet, open
in front, with large sleeves and no collar, the sumptuous material being
defaced and shiny. These remains of a magnificent costume, formerly worn
by him as president of the tribunal of the Parchons, functions which had
won him the enmity of the Duke of Burgundy, was now a mere rag.

Philippe was not cold; he perspired in his harness, dreading further
questions. Until then the brief information obtained that morning from
a Jew whose life he had formerly saved, had sufficed him, thanks to his
good memory and the perfect knowledge the Jew possessed of the manners
and habits of Maitre Cornelius. But the young man who, in the first
flush of his enterprise, had feared nothing was beginning to perceive
the difficulties it presented. The solemn gravity of the terrible
Fleming reacted upon him. He