"But you say in your reports that you have seen him going about with
some of the Orleanists. What is your inference there?"

"I have not yet formed one. It is a bit of a riddle there, for the
crow and the eagle do not fly together."

"Well, follow him to America."

"Thanks. The pay is good and the work is congenial." The tone of the
little man was softly given to irony.

Gray-haired, rosy-cheeked, a face smooth as a boy's, twinkling eyes
behind spectacles, he was one of the most astute, learned, and patient
of the French secret police. And he did not care the flip of his
strong brown fingers for the methods of Vidocq or Lecoq. His only
disguise was that not one of the criminal police of the world knew him
or had ever heard of him; and save his chief and three ministers of
war--for French cabinets are given to change--his own immediate friends
knew him as a butterfly hunter, a searcher for beetles and scarabs,
who, indeed, was one of the first authorities in France on the
subjects: Anatole Ferraud, who went about, hither and thither, with a
little red button in his buttonhole and a tongue facile in a dozen
languages.

"Very well, monsieur. I trust that in the near future I may bring you
good news."

"He will become nothing or the most desperate man in Europe."

"Admitted."