When Mascarin was asked what was the best way to achieve certain results, his
invariable reply was, "Keep moving, keep moving." He had one great advantage
over other men, he put in practice the doctrines he preached, and at seven
o'clock the morning after his interview with the Count de Mussidan he was hard
at work in his room. A thick fog hung over the city, even penetrating into the
office, which had begun to fill with clients. This crowd had but little interest for the
head of the establishment, as it consisted chiefly of waiters from small eating
houses, and cooks who knew little or nothing of what was going on in the houses
where they were in service. Finding this to be the case, Mascarin handed them
all over to Beaumarchef, and only occasionally nodded to the serviteur of some
great family, who chanced to stroll in.
He was busily engaged in arranging those pieces of cardboard which had so
much puzzled Paul in his first visit, and was so much occupied with his task, that
all he could do was to mutter broken exclamations: "What a stupendous
undertaking! but I have to work single-handed, and hold in my hands all these
threads, which for twenty years, with the patience of a spider, I have been
weaving into a web. No one, seeing me here, would believe this. People who
pass me by in the street say, 'That is Mascarin, who keeps a servants' registry
office;' that is the way in which they look upon me. Let them laugh if they like;
they little know the mighty power I wield in secret. No one suspects me, no, not
one. I may seem too sanguine, it is true," he continued, still glancing over his
papers, "or the net may break and some of the fishes slip out. That idiot,
Mussidan, asked me if I was acquainted with the Penal code. I should think I
was, for no one has studied them more deeply than I have, and there is a clause
in volume 3, chapter 2, which is always before me. Penal servitude for a term of
years; and if I am convicted under Article 306, then it means a life sentence." He
shuddered, but soon a smile of triumph shone over his face as he resumed, "Ah,
but to send a man like Mascarin for change of air to Toulon, he must be caught,
and that is not such an easy task. The day he scents danger he disappears, and
leaves no trace behind him. I fear that I cannot look for too much from my
companions, Catenac and Hortebise; I have up to now kept them back.
Croisenois would never betray me, and as for Beaumarchef, La Candele, Toto
Chupin, and a few other poor devils, they would be a fine haul for the police.
They couldn't split, simply because they know nothing." Mascarin chuckled, and
then adjusting his spectacles with his favorite gesture, said, "I shall go on in the
course I have commenced, straight as the flight of an arrow. I ought to make four
millions through Croisenois. Paul shall marry Flavia, that is all arranged, and
Flavia will make a grand duchess with her magnificent income."
He had by this time arranged his pasteboard squares, then he took a small
notebook, alphabetically arranged, from a drawer, wrote a name or two in it, and
then closing it said with a deadly smile, "There, my friends, you are all registered,
though you little suspect it. You are all rich, and think that you are free, but you
