ll informed."

"Eh? the thing is simple enough. You who are in power have only the
means that money produces--we who are in expectation, have those which
devotion prompts."

"Devotion!" said Villefort, with a sneer.

"Yes, devotion; for that is, I believe, the phrase for hopeful
ambition."

And Villefort's father extended his hand to the bell-rope, to summon the
servant whom his son had not called. Villefort caught his arm.

"Wait, my dear father," said the young man, "one word more."

"Say on."

"However stupid the royalist police may be, they do know one terrible
thing."

"What is that?"

"The description of the man who, on the morning of the day when General
Quesnel disappeared, presented himself at his house."

"Oh, the admirable police have found that out, have they? And what may
be that description?"

"Dark complexion; hair, eyebrows, and whiskers, black; blue frock-coat,
buttoned up to the chin; rosette of an officer of the Legion of Honor in
his button-hole; a hat with wide brim, and a cane."

"Ah, ha, that's it, is it?" said Noirtier; "and why, then, have they not
laid hands on him?"

"Because yesterday, or the day before, they lost sight of him at the
corner of the Rue Coq-Heron."

"Didn't I say that your police were good for nothing?"

"Yes; but they may catch him yet."

"True," said Noirtier, looking carelessly around him, "true, if this
person were not on his guard, as he is;" and he added with a smile, "He
will consequently make a few changes in his personal appearance." At
these words he rose, and put off his frock-coat and cravat, went towards
a table on which lay his son's toilet articles, lathered his face,
took a razor, and, with a firm hand, cut off the compromising whiskers.
Villefort watched him with alarm not devoid of admiration.

His whiskers cut off, Noirtier gave another turn to his hair; took,
instead of his black cravat, a colored neckerchief which lay at the top
of an open portmanteau; put on, in lieu of his blue and high-buttoned
frock-coat, a coat of Villefort's of dark brown, and cut away in front;
tried on before the glass a narrow-brimmed hat of his son's, which
appeared to fit him perfectly, and, leaving his cane in the corner where
he had deposited it, he took up a small bamboo switch, cut the air with
it once or twice, and walked about with that easy swagger which was one
of his principal characteristics.

"Well," he said, turning towards his wondering son, w