"You share your receipts with this butler. On the day I obtain it," he
added, and I now perceived his foreign accent, "I hand you one hundred
thousand francs; afterward, monthly payments till you have received the
stipulated sum. But how will this butler know me, in season to prevent a
mistake? Hem!--he might give it to the other!"

My hearing had been trained to such a degree that I would have promised
to overhear any given dialogue of the spirits themselves, but the
whisper that answered him eluded me. I caught nothing but a faint
sibillation. "Your ring?" was the rejoinder. "He shall be instructed to
recognize it? Very well. It is too large,--no, that will do, it fits the
first finger. There is nothing more. I am under infinite obligations,
Sir; they shall be remembered. Adieu!"

The two parted; which should I pursue? In desperation I turned my
lantern upon one, and illumined a face fresh with color, whose black
eyes sparkled askance after the retreating figure, under straight black
brows. In a moment more he was lost in a false _cul-de-sac_, and I found
it impossible to trace the other.

I was scarcely better off than before; but it seemed to me that I had
obtained something, and that now it was wisest to work this vein. "The
butler of Madame----." There were hundreds of thousands of Madames in
town. I might call on all, and be as old as the Wandering Jew at the
last call. The cellar. Wine-cellar, of course,--that came by a natural
connection with butler,--but whose? There was one under my own abode;
certainly I would explore it. Meanwhile, let us see the entertainments
for Wednesday. The Prefect had a list of these. For some I found I had
cards; I determined to allot a fraction of time to as many as possible;
my friends in the Secret Service would divide the labor. Among others,