Moreover, his influence was already felt at the Bourse; he had re-entered the building as a conqueror, a substantial man, supported henceforth by real millions; and the shrewd ones talked in low tones as they looked at him, whispering extraordinary rumours, and predicting his approaching sovereignty. Towards half-past three he was always back at the bank again, settling down to the irksome task of signing, and so trained in this mechanical movement of the hand that, his head free and speaking at his ease, he summoned employees, gave answers, and decided important matters without once ceasing to sign. Then, until six o'clock, he again received visitors, finished the work of the day, and prepared that of the morrow. And when he went up again to Madame Caroline, it was for a more copious meal than that at eleven o'clock--delicate fish and particularly game, with caprices in the matter of wine that led him to dine on one evening with Burgundy, on another with Bordeaux, and on another with Champagne, according to the fortune that had attended him that day. 'Dare to say that I am not well-behaved!' he cried sometimes, with a smile. 'Instead of frequenting clubs and theatres, I live here, like a good _bourgeois_, beside you. You must write that to your brother to reassure him.' He was not as well-behaved as he pretended, having about that time taken a fancy to a little singer at the Bouffes; but he lived in such a desire, such an anxiety, for success, that all other appetites were bound to remain diminished and paralysed until he should feel himself triumphant, fortune's undisputed master. 'Bah!' Madame Caroline would answer, 'my brother has always been so staid that staidness is to him a natural condition, and not a merit, I wrote to him yesterday that I had induced you not to re-gild the board-room. That will please him much more.' It was about this time, one very cold afternoon in the early days of November, at the moment when Madame Caroline was giving the head painter an order to merely clean the paint in the board-room, that a servant brought her a card, saying that the person who had delivered it strongly insisted upon seeing her. The card, a dirty one, bore the name of Busch, coarsely printed. She did not know the name; still she gave orders for the person to be shown up to her brother's room, where she usually received.