“I tell you that I want you to sit down; I have something to say to you. Take this chair.” Georget obeyed, and took his seat on the edge of a chair; then he made haste to say: “I went to the Palais-Royal quarter yesterday, monsieur; I went the whole length of Rue Richelieu, Rue Neuve-des-Petits-Champs and all the streets leading into them. There are many hotels in that quarter, and yet I discovered nothing; no one there knows that gentleman.” “My boy, it is eight or ten days now, I believe, that you have been engaged in this tiresome business for me! That is quite enough! Cease your investigations; you have more than earned the money which you pretend that you owe me.” “But, monsieur, it doesn’t tire me at all to go about Paris; besides, it’s my trade, and I often do other errands while I am looking for monsieur; so why shouldn’t I keep on? I haven’t searched all Paris yet.” “I tell you again, my friend, that I don’t want you to look any farther. I have reflected, and if heaven permits me to find this gentleman, whom you have sought in vain, it will bring me face to face with him; otherwise, it evidently means that He who governs everything does not choose that I should carry out my plans, and I must submit.” “Perhaps monsieur is not satisfied with me; perhaps he thinks that I do not go about it in the right way, and----” “On the contrary, I am entirely satisfied with you; your mother, whom I have seen, because she absolutely insisted upon thanking me,--your mother has no end of pleasant things to say about you.” “Oh! you mustn’t believe it all, monsieur; mothers exaggerate a bit, you know, when they talk about their sons!” “That may be, but other persons too have confirmed what your mother said.” “Monsieur is too kind!” “You have had some education; you know how to read and write and figure, do you not?” “Yes, monsieur, tolerably well.”