M. Tabaret’s anger, albeit very real and justified, was so highly ludicrous, that M. Daburon had much difficulty to restrain his laughter, in spite of the real sadness of the recital.

“At least,” said he, “this fortune must have given you pleasure.”

“Not at all, sir, it came too late.  Of what avail to have the bread when one has no longer the teeth?  The marriageable age had passed.  I resigned my situation, however, to make way for some one poorer than myself.  At the end of a month I was sick and tired of life; and, to replace the affections that had been denied me, I resolved to give myself a passion, a hobby, a mania.  I became a collector of books.  You think, sir, perhaps that to take an interest in books a man must have studied, must be learned?”

“I know, dear M. Tabaret, that he must have money.  I am acquainted with an illustrious bibliomaniac who may be able to read, but who is most certainly unable to sign his own name.”

“This is very likely.  I, too, can read; and I read all the books I bought.  I collected all I could find which related, no matter how little, to the police.  Memoirs, reports, pamphlets, speeches, letters, novels,—­all suited me; and I devoured them.  So much so, that little by little I became attracted towards the mysterious power which, from the obscurity of the Rue de Jerusalem, watches over and protects society, which penetrates everywhere, lifts the most impervious veils, sees through every plot, divines what is kept hidden, knows exactly the value of a man, the price of a conscience, and which accumulates in its portfolios the most terrible, as well as the most shameful secrets!  In reading the memoirs of celebrated detectives, more attractive to me than the fables of our best authors I became inspired by an enthusiastic admiration for those men, so keen scented, so subtle, flexible as steel, artful and penetrating, fertile in expedients, who follow crime on the trail, armed with the law, through the rushwood of legality, as relentlessly as the savages of Cooper pursue their enemies in the depths of the American forests.  The desire seized me to become a wheel of this admirable machine,—­a small assistance in the punishment of crime and the triumph of innocence.  I made the essay; and I found I did not succeed too badly.”

“And does this employment please you?”

“I owe to it, sir, my liveliest enjoyments.  Adieu weariness! since I have abandoned the search for books to the search for men.  I shrug my shoulders when I see a foolish fellow pay twenty-five francs for the right of hunting a hare.  What a prize!  Give me the hunting of a man!  That, at least, calls the faculties into play, and the victory is not inglorious!  The game in my sport is equal to the hunter; they both possess intelligence, strength, and cunning.  The arms are nearly equal.  Ah! if people but knew the excitement of these games of hide and seek which are played between the criminal