As Mazaud halted once more in front of the velvet-topped balustrade he again came upon Jacoby, who also carried a handful of _fiches_, red ones, the hue of freshly shed blood. These undoubtedly were orders from Gundermann and his followers, for everybody was aware that in the massacre now being prepared Jacoby would be the broker of the 'bears,' the executioner-in-chief of the Israelite banking world. He was at present listening to another broker, his brother-in-law, Delarocque, a Christian who had married a Jewess, a very bald, stout, thick-set, florid man, partial to clubland and known to receive the orders of Daigremont, who had lately fallen out with Jacoby as he had formerly fallen out with Mazaud. The story which Delarocque was telling--a story of equivocal character--lighted up his little blinking eyes, while he waved, in passionate pantomime, his memorandum-book, from which protruded his package of _fiches_, which were blue, the soft blue of an April sky. 'Monsieur Massias is asking for you,' an attendant came to say to Mazaud. The latter quickly returned to the end of the railed passage. The _remisier_, now completely in the pay of the Universal, had brought Mazaud news from the _coulisse_, which had already begun business under the peristyle in spite of the terrible cold. A few speculators ventured to show themselves there, but went to warm themselves in the hall every now and then; whereas the _coulissiers_, wrapped in heavy overcoats, with their fur collars turned up, bravely kept their places in a circle, as usual, underneath the clock, and growing so animated, shouting and gesticulating so vehemently that they did not feel the cold. And one of the most active was little Nathansohn, now in a fair way to become a man of importance, for luck had favoured him since the day when, resigning his position as a mere petty clerk at the Crédit Mobilier, he had had the idea of renting a room and opening a wicket. Speaking rapidly, Massias explained to Mazaud that, as prices seemed to have a downward tendency under the weight of the shares with which the 'bears' were overwhelming the market, Saccard had just had the idea of operating at the _coulisse_, in order to influence the official opening quotation at the _corbeille_. Universals had closed the day before at three thousand and thirty francs; and he had given an order to Nathansohn to buy a hundred shares, which another _coulissier_ was to offer at three thousand and thirty-five. This would be a rise of five francs. 'All right! the quotation will reach us;' said Mazaud.