e
running in all directions; and right before him a carriage, going
at full gallop, passed like a flash.

But, quick as it had passed, he had time to recognize Mlle.
Lucienne, pale, and clinging desperately to the seat. Wild with
fear, he started after it as fast as he could run. It was clear
that the driver had no control over his horses. A policeman who
tried to stop them was knocked down. Ten steps farther, the
hind-wheel of the carriage, catching the wheel of a heavy wagon,
broke to splinters; and Mlle. Lucienne was thrown into the street,
whilst the driver fell over on the sidewalk.

VI

The Baron de Thaller was too practical a man to live in the same
house, or even in the same district, where his offices were
located. To dwell in the midst of his business; to be constantly
subjected to the contact of his employes, to the unkindly comments
of a crowd of subordinates; to expose himself to hourly annoyances,
to sickening solicitations, to the reclamations and eternal
complaints of his stockholders and his clients! Pouah! He'd have
given up the business first. And so, on the very days when he had
established the offices of the Mutual Credit in the Rue de
Quatre-Septembre, he had purchased a house in the Rue de la
Pepiniere within a step of the Faubourg St. Honore.

It was a brand-new house, which had never yet been occupied, and
which had just been erected by a contractor who was almost
celebrated, towards 1866, at the moment of the great transformations
of Paris, when whole blocks were leveled to the ground, and rose
again so rapidly, that one might well wonder whether the masons,
instead of a trowel, did not make use of a magician's wand.

This contractor, named Parcimieux, had come from the Limousin in
1860 with his carpenter's tools for all fortune, and, in less than
six years, had accumulated, at the lowest estimate, six millions
of francs. Only he was a modest man, and took as much pains to
conceal his fortune, and offend no one, as most _parvenus_ do to
display their wealth, and insult the public.

Though he could hardly sign his name, yet he knew and practised
the maxim of the Greek philosopher, which is, perhaps, the true
secret of happiness,--hide thy life. And there were no expedients
to which he did not resort to hide it. At the time of his greatest
prosperity, for instance, having need of a carriage, he had applied
to the manager of the Petites Voitures Company, and had had built