“That is well understood:  for, if we were to pay him beforehand, he would be drunk for a week in some low den.  It was thus we had to pay him twice over for his virulent attack on the pantheistic tendencies of Professor Martin’s philosophy.”

“Take note of it—­and go on!”

“The merchant announces that the clerk is about to send the banker to give in his accounts.  You understand?’ added Rodin, after pronouncing these words with a marked emphasis.

“Perfectly,” said the other, with a start; “they are but the expressions agreed on.  What next?”

“But the clerk,” continued the secretary, “is restrained by a last scruple.”

After a moment’s silence, during which the features of Rodin’s master worked strongly, he thus resumed:  “They must continue to act on the clerk’s mind by silence and solitude; then, let him read once more the list of cases in which regicide is authorized and absolved.  Go on!”

“The woman Sydney writes from Dresden, that she waits for instructions.  Violent scenes of jealousy on her account have again taken place between the father and son; but neither from these new bursts of mutual hatred, nor from the confidential communications which each has made to her against his rival, has she yet been able to glean the information required.  Hitherto, she has avoided giving the preference to one or the other; but, should this situation be prolonged, she fears it may rouse their suspicion.  Which ought she then to choose—­the father or the son?”

“The son—­for jealous resentment will be much more violent and cruel in the old man, and, to revenge himself for the preference bestowed upon his son, he will perhaps tell what they have both such an interest to conceal.  The next?”

“Within the last three years, two maid-servants of Ambrosius whom we placed in that little parish in the mountains of the Valais, have disappeared, without any one knowing what has become of them.  A third has just met with the same fate.  The Protestants of the country are roused—­talk of murder with frightful attendant circumstances—­”

“Until there is proof positive and complete of the fact, Ambrosius must be defended against these infamous calumnies, the work of a party that never shrinks from; monstrous inventions.  Go on!”

“Thompson, of Liverpool, has at length succeeded in procuring for Justin the place of agent or manager to Lord Stewart, a rich Irish Catholic, whose head grows daily weaker.”

“Let the fact be once verified, and Thompson shall have a premium of fifty louis.  Make a note of it for Duplessis.  Proceed.”

“Frantz Dichstein, of Vienna,” resumed Rodin, “announces that his father has just died of the cholera, in a little village at some leagues from that city:  for the epidemic continues to advance slowly, coming from the north of Russia by way of Poland.”

“It is true,” said Rodin’s master, interrupting him; “may its terrible march be stayed, and France be spared.”