“That,” he said shortly, “is the way they fail. They do not understand the necessity of exactitude. The people--see you, Mr. Jacquetot, they fail because they have no exactitude.” “But I am of the people,” moving ponderously on his chair. “Essentially so. I know it, my friend. But I have taught you something.” The tobacconist laughed. “I suppose so. But is it safe to stand there in the full day? Will you not pass in? The room is ready; the lamp is lighted. There is an agent of the police always at the end of the street now.” “Ah, bah!” and he shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. “I am not afraid of them. There is only one thing to be feared, Citizen Jacquetot--the press. The press and the people, _bien entendu_.” “If you despise the people why do you use them?” asked Jacquetot abruptly. “In default of better, my friend. If one has not steam one uses the river to turn the mill-wheel. The river is slow; sometimes it is too weak, sometimes too strong. One never has full control over it, but it turns the wheel--it turns the wheel, brother Jacquetot.” “And eventually sweeps away the miller,” suggested the tobacconist lightly. It must be remembered that though stout he was intelligent. Had he not been so it is probable that this conversation would never have taken place. The dark-eyed man did not look like one who would have the patience to deal with stupid people. Again the pleasant smile flickered like the light of a fire in a dark place. “That,” was the reply, “is the affair of the miller.” “But,” conceded Jacquetot, meditatively selecting a new cigar from a box which he had reached without moving from his chair, “but the people--they are fools, hein!” “Ah!” with a protesting shrug, as if deprecating the enunciation of such a platitude. Then he passed through into a little room behind the shop--a little room where no daylight penetrated, because there was no window to it. It depended for daylight upon the shop, with which it communicated by a door of which the upper half was glass. But this glass was thickly curtained with the material called Turkey-red, threefold. And the tobacconist was left alone in his shop, smoking gravely. There are some people like oysters, inasmuch as they leave an after-taste behind them. The man who had just gone into the little room at the rear of the tobacconist's shop of the Rue St. Gingolphe in Paris was one of these. And the taste he left behind him was rather disquieting. One was apt to feel that there was a mistake somewhere in the ordering of human affairs, and that this man was one of its victims. In a few minutes two men passed hastily through the shop into the little room, with scarcely so much as a nod for Mr. Jacquetot. CHAPTER II TOOLS