It was Busch, who had just come back, and who in his perpetual fear that his brother might be sent into a fit of coughing by being made to talk too much was darting at his visitor the oblique glances of a jealous lover. However, he did not wait for Saccard's reply, but in a maternal, almost despairing fashion began to scold. 'What! you have let your fire go out again. Is there any sense in it, on such a cold damp day as this!' And, already bending on his knees, despite the weight of his huge frame, he began breaking up some small wood and relighting the fire. Then he went to fetch a broom, swept up the litter, and saw to the medicine which his brother had to take every two hours. And it was only when he had prevailed on him to lie down on the bed to rest that he again became tranquil. 'If you will step into my office, Monsieur Saccard,' said he. Madame Méchain was now there, seated on the only chair there was. She and Busch had just been down to make an important call, with the complete success of which they were delighted. At last, after a delay which had well-nigh driven them to despair, one of the affairs which they had most at heart had been set afoot again. For three years, indeed, La Méchain had been tramping the pavements in search of Léonie Cron, that girl in whose favour the late Count de Beauvilliers had signed an acknowledgment of ten thousand francs, payable on the day when she should attain her majority. Vainly had La Méchain applied to her cousin Fayeux, the dividend-collector at Vendôme, who had bought this acknowledgment for Busch in a lot of old debts belonging to the estate of a certain Charpier, a grain merchant and occasional usurer. Fayeux knew nothing, and simply wrote that Léonie Cron must be in the employ of a process-server in Paris; at all events, she had left Vendôme more than ten years before and had never returned, and it was impossible to obtain any information from any of her relatives, as they were all dead. La Méchain had managed to discover the process-server, and had even succeeded in tracing Léonie to a butcher's house, next to a fast woman's, and next to a dentist's; but then the thread abruptly broke, the scent was lost. It was like searching for a needle in a haystack. How can one hope to find a girl who has fallen, disappeared amid the mire of a great city like Paris? In vain had she tried the servants' agencies, visited the low lodging-houses, ransacked the haunts of vice, always on the watch, turning her head and questioning as soon as the name of Léonie fell upon her ears. And this girl, for whom she had searched so far, she had that very day, by chance, discovered in the Rue Feydeau itself, in a disreputable house, where she had called to hunt up an old tenant of the Cité de Naples who owed her three francs. A stroke of genius had led her to recognise the wench under the distinguished name of Léonide, and Busch, being notified, had at once returned with her to the house to negotiate.