Thereupon they pushed the other two aside.  The butter dealer took the first pile, which at once disappeared within her skirts.  Then La Sarriette took a pile.  They kept a close watch upon one another, ready to fight at the slightest attempt at cheating.  Their fingers were thrust forward in turn, the hideous knotted fingers of the aunt and the white fingers of the niece, soft and supple as silk.  Slowly they filled their pockets.  When there was only one pile left, La Sarriette objected to her aunt taking it, as she had commenced; and she suddenly divided it between Mademoiselle Saget and Madame Leonce, who had watched them pocket the gold with feverish impatience.

“Much obliged to you!” snarled the doorkeeper.  “Fifty francs for having coddled him up with tisane and broth!  The old deceiver told me he had no relatives!”

Before locking the wardrobe up again, Madame Lecoeur searched it thoroughly from top to bottom.  It contained all the political works which were forbidden admission into the country, the pamphlets printed at Brussels, the scandalous histories of the Bonapartes, and the foreign caricatures ridiculing the Emperor.  One of Gavard’s greatest delights was to shut himself up with a friend, and show him all these compromising things.

“He told me that I was to burn all the papers,” said La Sarriette.

“Oh, nonsense! we’ve no fire, and it would take up too long.  The police will soon be here!  We must get out of this!”

They all four hastened off; but they had not reached the bottom of the stairs before the police met them, and made Madame Leonce return with them upstairs.  The three others, making themselves as small as possible, hurriedly escaped into the street.  They walked away in single file at a brisk pace; the aunt and niece considerably incommoded by the weight of their drooping pockets.  Mademoiselle Saget had kept her fifty francs in her closed fist, and remained deep in thought, brooding over a plan for extracting something more from the heavy pockets in front of her.

“Ah!” she exclaimed, as they reached the corner of the fish market, “we’ve got here at a lucky moment.  There’s Florent yonder, just going to walk into the trap.”

Florent, indeed, was just then returning to the markets after his prolonged perambulation.  He went into his office to change his coat, and then set about his daily duties, seeing that the marble slabs were properly washed, and slowly strolling along the alleys.  He fancied that the fish-wives looked at him in a somewhat strange manner; they chuckled too, and smiled significantly as he passed them.  Some new vexation, he thought, was in store for him.  For some time past those huge, terrible women had not allowed him a day’s peace.  However, as he passed the Mehudins’ stall he was very much surprised to hear the old woman address him in a honeyed tone:  “There’s just been a gentleman inquiring for you, Monsieur Florent; a middle-aged gentleman.  He’s gone to wait for you in your room.”