“Ah,” said the doctor pleasantly, “do you take your nips of brandy regularly?”

“Only occasionally, sir,” stammered the man.

“Too often, too often, my good fellow.  Do you think that your nose and eyelids are not real telltales?”

“But I assure you, sir—­”

“Do you not remember I told you that you had asthmatic symptoms?  Why, the movement of your pectoral muscles shows that your lungs are affected.”

“But I have been running, sir.”

Mascarin broke in upon this conversation, which he considered frivolous.  “If he is out of breath,” remarked he, “it is because he has been endeavoring to repair a great act of carelessness that he has committed.  Well, Beaumarchef, how did you get on?”

“All right, sir,” returned he, with a look of triumph.  “Good!”

“What are you talking about?” asked the doctor.

Mascarin gave his friend a meaning glance, and then, in a careless manner, replied, “Caroline Schimmel, a former servant of the Champdoce family, also patronizes our office.  How did you find her, Beaumarchef?”

“Well, an idea occurred to me.”

“Pooh! do you have ideas at your time of life?”

Beaumarchef put on an air of importance.  “My idea was this,” he went on:  “as I left the office with Toto Chupin, I said to myself, the woman would certainly drop in at some pub before she reached the boulevard.”

“A sound argument,” remarked the doctor.

“Therefore Toto and I took a squint into every one we passed, and before we got to the Rue Carreau we saw her in one, sure enough.”

“And Toto is after her now?”

“Yes, sir; he said he would follow her like her shadow, and will bring in a report every day.”

“I am very pleased with you, Beaumarchef,” said Mascarin, rubbing his hands joyously.

Beaumarchef seemed highly flattered, but continued,—­

“This is not all.”

“What else is there to tell?”

“I met La Candele on his way from the Place de Petit Pont, and he has just seen that young girl—­you know whom I mean—­driving off in a two-horse Victoria.  He followed it, of course.  She has been placed in a gorgeous apartment in the Rue Douai; and from what the porter says, she must be a rare beauty; and La Candele raved about her, and says that she has the most magnificent eyes in the world.”

“Ah,” remarked Hortebise, “then Tantaine was right in his description of her.”

“Of course he was,” answered Mascarin with a slight frown, “and this proves the justice of the objection you made a little time back.  A girl possessed of such dazzling beauty may even influence the fool who has carried her off to become dangerous.”

Beaumarchef touched his master’s arm kindly.  “If you wish to get rid of the masher,” said he, “I can show you a way;” and throwing himself into the position of a fencer, he made a lunge with his right arm, exclaiming, “One, two!”