Quick, decided in his movements as in his ideas, short and squat in figure, with a thin nose, a fiery eye, an ear on the “qui vive,” there was something of the hunting-dog about him. His brown face, very round and sunburned, from which the tanned ears stood out predominantly,--for he always wore a cap,--was in keeping with that character. His nose turned up; his tightly-closed lips could never have opened to say a kindly thing. His bushy whiskers formed a pair of black and shiny tufts beneath the highly-colored cheek-bones, and were lost in his cravat. Hair that was pepper-and-salt in color and frizzled naturally in stages like those of a judge’s wig, seeming scorched by the fury of the fire which heated his brown skull and gleamed in his gray eyes surrounded by circular wrinkles (no doubt from a habit of always blinking when he looked across the country in full sunlight), completed the characteristics of his physiognomy. His lean and vigorous hands were hairy, knobbed, and claw-like, like those of men who do their share of labor. His personality was agreeable to those with whom he had to do, for he wrapped it in a misleading gayety; he knew how to talk a great deal without saying a word of what he meant to keep unsaid. He wrote little, so as to deny anything that escaped him which might prove unfavorable in its after effects upon his interests. His books and papers were kept by a cashier,--an honest man, whom men of Gaubertin’s stamp always seek to get hold of, and whom they make, in their own selfish interests, their first dupe. When Rigou’s little green chaise appeared, towards twelve o’clock, in the broad avenue which skirts the river, Gaubertin, in cap, boots, and jacket, was returning from the wharves. He hastened his steps,--feeling very sure that Rigou’s object in coming over could only be “the great affair.” “Good morning, gendarme; good morning, paunch of gall and wisdom,” he said, giving a little slap to the stomachs of his two visitors. “We have business to talk over, and, faith! we’ll do it glass in hand; that’s the true way to take things.” “If you do your business that way, you ought to be fatter than you are,” said Rigou. “I work too hard; I’m not like you two, confined to the house and bewitched there, like old dotards. Well, well, after all that’s the best way; you can do your business comfortably in an arm-chair, with your back to the fire and your belly at table; custom goes to you, I have to go after it. But now, come in, come in! the house is yours for the time you stay.” A servant, in blue livery edged with scarlet, took the horse by the bridle and led him into the courtyard, where were the offices and the stable. Gaubertin left his guests to walk about the garden for a moment, while he went to give his orders and arrange about the breakfast.