"And eventually sweeps away the miller," suggested the tobacconist
lightly. It must be remembered that though stout he was intelligent. Had
he not been so it is probable that this conversation would never have
taken place. The dark-eyed man did not look like one who would have the
patience to deal with stupid people.

Again the pleasant smile flickered like the light of a fire in a dark
place.

"That," was the reply, "is the affair of the miller."

"But," conceded Jacquetot, meditatively selecting a new cigar from a box
which he had reached without moving from his chair, "but the
people--they are fools, hein!"

"Ah!" with a protesting shrug, as if deprecating the enunciation of such
a platitude.

Then he passed through into a little room behind the shop--a little room
where no daylight penetrated, because there was no window to it. It
depended for daylight upon the shop, with which it communicated by a
door of which the upper half was glass. But this glass was thickly
curtained with the material called Turkey-red, threefold.

And the tobacconist was left alone in his shop, smoking gravely. There
are some people like oysters, inasmuch as they leave an after-taste
behind them. The man who had just gone into the little room at the rear
of the tobacconist's shop of the Rue St. Gingolphe in Paris was one of
these. And the taste he left behind him was rather disquieting. One was