However, the two accomplices shook hands vigorously. Larsonneau styled Saccard his "dear master." He had, at the bottom of his heart, a real admiration for this equilibrist, and watched his performances on the tight rope of speculation like a connoisseur. The idea of duping him titillated him like some rare and spicy voluptuousness. He caressed a plan which was still vague, however, for he did not very well know how to employ the weapon he possessed, and he feared wounding himself with it. Besides, he felt that he was at the mercy of his ex-colleague. The ground and the buildings, which carefully prepared inventories already valued at nearly two millions of francs, though they were not worth a quarter of that amount, must end by being swallowed up in a colossal bankruptcy, if the fairy of expropriation did not touch them with her golden wand. According to the original plans which the two confederates had been able to consult, the new Boulevard, opened in view of connecting the artillery depôt of Vincennes with the Prince Eugène barracks, and of bringing the guns and ammunition into the heart of Paris without passing through the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, would cross a part of the ground; but it was still to be feared that only a corner of the latter might be cut off, and that the ingenious speculation of the music hall would fall through by reason of its very impudence. In that case Larsonneau would remain with a delicate matter to deal with. Still this peril did not prevent him, despite the secondary part which he played perforce, from feeling soul-sick when he thought of the paltry ten per cent which he would pocket in this colossal robbery of millions. And at those moments he could not resist the furious longing he felt to extend his hand and carve out a larger share for himself. Saccard had not even allowed him to lend money to his wife, he had preferred to amuse himself with this big piece of theatrical trickery, which delighted his partiality for complicated transactions. "No, no, my dear fellow," he said, with his Provençal accent, which he exaggerated whenever he wished to impart additional salt to a joke, "don't let us mix up our accounts. You are the only man in Paris to whom I have sworn never to owe a copper." Larsonneau contented himself with insinuating that his colleague's wife was a gulf. He advised him not to give her another sou, so that she would then be compelled to transfer her property to them immediately. He would have preferred to have to deal with Saccard alone. He probed him at times, and carried things so far as to say, with the weary indifferent air of a man about town: "All the same, I must put my papers in a little order. Your wife frightens me, my good fellow. I don't want justice to place the seals on certain documents at my office."