"That's the man. He is not fifty years old, and he is worth ten million dollars. At eighteen he was a conductor of a tramway at Cleveland, Ohio. Such as you see him now, he has founded a city of fifty thousand inhabitants, named after his wife, Marionville, and he has made his fortune literally with his own hands, since they say that he himself, with a few workmen, built on the prairie the first miles of his company's railroad, which is now more than two thousand miles long. Observe those hands of his. You can see them so well against the green cloth; they are strong and not common. You see the knotty knuckles, which means reflection, judgment, calculation. The ends of the fingers are a little too spatulated; that means an excessive activity, the need of continual movement and a tendency toward mournful thoughts. I will tell you some day about the death of his daughter. You see the thumb; the two joints are large and of equal length; that means will and logic combined. It curves backward; that is prodigality. Marsh has given a hundred thousand dollars to the University of Marionville. And notice his movements, what decision, what calm, what freedom from nervousness. Isn't that a man?" "He is certainly a man with an abundance of money," said Hautefeuille, amused by his friend's enthusiasm, "and a man who is not afraid of losing it." "And that other, two places from Marsh, has he no money, then? That personage with a rosette and a red, sinister face. It is Brion, the financier, the director of the Banque Générale. Have you not met him at the house of Madame de Carlsberg? His wife is the intimate friend of Baroness Ely. Millionaire that he is, look at his hands, how nervous and greedy. You observe that his thumb is ball-shaped; that is the mark of crime. If that rascal is not a robber! And his manner of clutching the bank-notes, doesn't it show his brutality? And beside him you may see the play of a fool, Chésy, with his smooth and pointed fingers, the two middle ones of equal length, that of Saturn and that of the Sun. That is the infallible sign of a player who will ruin himself, especially if he is no more logical than this one. And he thinks himself shrewd! He enters into business relations with Brion, who pays court to Madame de Chésy. You may see the inevitable end." "The pretty Madame de Chésy?" exclaimed Hautefeuille, "and that abominable Brion? Impossible." "I do not say that it has happened; I say that, given this imbecile of a husband, with his taste for gambling here and at the Bourse, there is a great danger that it will happen some day. You see," he added, "that this place is not so commonplace when you open your eyes; and you will acknowledge that of the two Parisians and the _rastaquouère_ whom we have seen, the interesting man is the _rastaquouère_."