they are not invited, and seeming bold when they are really timid,
inquisitive where they are truly discreet. The cashier accordingly
began to glide along the carpet and edge himself away, so that the
minister saw him at a distance when he first took notice of him.
Saillard was a ministerial henchman absolutely incapable of
indiscretion; even if the minister had known that he had overheard a
secret he had only to whisper "motus" in his ear to be sure it was
perfectly safe. The cashier, however, took advantage of an influx of
office-seekers, to slip out and get into his hackney-coach (hired by
the hour for these costly entertainments), and to return to his home
in the place Royale.



CHAPTER III

THE TEREDOS NAVALIS, OTHERWISE CALLED SHIP-WORM

While old Saillard was driving across Paris his son-in-law, Isidore
Baudoyer, and his daughter, Elisabeth, Baudoyer's wife, were playing a
virtuous game of boston with their confessor, the Abbe Gaudron, in
company with a few neighbors and a certain Martin Falleix, a
brass-founder in the fauborg Saint-Antoine, to whom Saillard had
loaned the necessary money to establish a business. This Falleix, a
respectable Auvergnat who had come to seek his fortune in Paris with his
smelting-pot on his back, had found immediate employment with the firm of
Brezac, collectors of metals and other relics from all chateaux in the
provinces. About twenty-seven years of age, and spoiled, like others,
by success, Martin Falleix had had the luck to become the active agent
of Monsieur Saillard, the sleeping-partner in the working out of a