“Now,” said Tantaine, “I came here with a really magnificent proposal.  But I adopted the course I pursued because I wished to prove to you that you belonged more absolutely to Mascarin than did your wretched foreign slaves to you.  You are absolutely at his mercy, and he can crush you to powder whenever he likes.”

“Your Mascarin is Satan himself,” muttered the discomfited man.  “Who can resist him?”

“Come, as you think thus, we can talk sensibly at last.”

“Well,” answered Perpignan ruefully, as he adjusted his disordered necktie, “say what you like, I have no answer to make.”

“Let us begin at the commencement,” said Tantaine.  “For some days past your people have been following a certain Caroline Schimmel.  A fellow of sixteen called Ambrose, a lad with a harp, was told off for this duty.  He is not to be trusted.  Only a night or two ago one of my men made him drunk; and fearing lest his absence might create surprise, drove him here in a cab, and left him at the corner.”

The ex-cook uttered an oath.

“Then you too are watching Caroline,” said he.  “I knew well that there was some one else in the field, but that was no matter of mine.”

“Well, tell me why you are watching her?”

“How can you ask me?  You know that my motto is silence and discretion, and that this is a secret intrusted to my honor.”

Tantaine shrugged his shoulders.

“Why do you talk like that, when you know very well that you are following Ambrose on your own account, hoping by that means to penetrate a secret, only a small portion of which has been intrusted to you?” remarked he.

“Are you certain of this statement?” asked the man, with a cunning look.

“So sure that I can tell you that the matter was placed in your hands by a certain M. Catenac.”

The expression in Perpignan’s face changed from astonishment to fear.

“Why, this Mascarin knows everything,” muttered he.

“No,” replied Tantaine, “my master does not know everything, and the proof of this is, that I have come to ask you what occurred between Catenac’s client and yourself, and this is the service that we expect from you.”

“Well, if I must, I must.  About three weeks ago, one morning, I had just finished with half a dozen clients at my office in the Rue de Fame, when my servant brought me Catenac’s card.  After some talk, he asked me if I could find out a person that he had utterly lost sight of.  Of course I said, yes, I could.  Upon this he asked me to make an appointment for ten the next morning, when some one would call on me regarding the affair.  At the appointed time a shabbily dressed man was shown in.  I looked at him up and down, and saw that, in spite of his greasy hat and threadbare coat, his linen was of the finest kind, and that his shoes were the work of one of our best bootmakers.  ‘Aha,’ said I to myself, ’you thought to take me in,