"The more rascally a business is, the more honor it needs. I'm for him
who pays me best," continued Fromenteau addressing Gaillard. "You want
to recover fifty thousand francs and you talk farthings to your means
of action. Give me five hundred francs and your man is pinched to-night,
for we spotted him yesterday!"

"Five hundred francs for you alone!" cried Theodore Gaillard.

"Lizette wants a shawl," said the spy, not a muscle of his face
moving. "I call her Lizette because of Beranger."

"You have a Lizette, and you stay in such a business!" cried the
virtuous Gazonal.

"It is amusing! People may cry up the pleasures of hunting and fishing
as much as they like but to stalk a man in Paris is far better fun."

"Certainly," said Gazonal, reflectively, speaking to himself, "they
must have great talent."

"If I were to enumerate the qualities which make a man remarkable in
our vocation," said Fromenteau, whose rapid glance had enabled him to
fathom Gazonal completely, "you'd think I was talking of a man of
genius. First, we must have the eyes of a lynx; next, audacity (to
tear into houses like bombs, accost the servants as if we knew them,
and propose treachery--always agreed to); next, memory, sagacity,
invention (to make schemes, conceived rapidly, never the same--for
spying must be guided by the characters and habits of the persons
spied upon; it is a gift of heaven); and, finally, agility, vigor. All