Monsieur Toutin-Laroche, who was tall and thin, and the inventor of a mixture of suet and stearin for the manufacture of candles, had a hankering to enter the senate. He stuck to Baron Gouraud like a leech; he rubbed up against him with the vague idea that his doing so would bring him luck. In reality he was thoroughly practical, and had he come across a senator's chair to be sold he would have fiercely higgled over the price. The Empire was about to bring out this greedy nonentity, this narrow mind which had a genius for dabbling in industrial affairs. He was the first to sell his name to a bogus company, one of those associations which sprouted up like poisonous toadstools on the dunghill of imperial speculations. At that time one could have seen on all the walls a poster bearing the following words in bold black letters:--"Société générale of the ports of Morocco," and beneath which the name of Monsieur Toutin-Laroche, with his title of municipal councillor, appeared at the head of the list of directors, all more or less unknown personages. This proceeding, which has become far more popular since, succeeded wonderfully; the shares were snapped up, though the question of the ports of Morocco was not very clear, and the worthy people who brought their money were themselves unable to explain to what purpose it was to be put. The poster announced in a superb manner the project of establishing commercial stations along the Mediterranean coast. For two years past certain newspapers had been celebrating this magnificent undertaking, which they declared to be more and more prosperous every three months. Amongst the municipal council Monsieur Toutin-Laroche had the reputation of being a first-class administrator; he was one of the strong minds of the neighbourhood, and his acrimonious tyranny over his colleagues was only equalled by his devout platitude in the presence of the prefect. He was already engaged in founding a great financial company, the Crédit Viticole, a sort of loan office for vine growers, and to which he would allude in a grave and reticent manner which aroused the covetousness of the fools around him.