while he felt in his pockets for the deeds. In presenting them to
Molineux Cesar remarked, to avoid all unnecessary delay, that Monsieur
Roguin had drawn them up.

"I do not dispute the legal talents of Monsieur Roguin, an old name
well-known in the notariat of Paris; but I have my own little customs,
I do my own business (an excusable hobby), and my notary is--"

"But this matter is very simple," said the perfumer, who was used to
the quick business methods of merchants.

"Simple!" cried Molineux. "Nothing is simple in such matters. Ah! you
are not a landlord, monsieur, and you may think yourself happy. If you
knew to what lengths of ingratitude tenants can go, and to what
precautions we are driven! Why, monsieur, I once had a tenant--"

And for a quarter an hour he recounted how a Monsieur Gendrin,
designer, had deceived the vigilance of his porter, Rue Saint-Honore.
Monsieur Gendrin had committed infamies worthy of Marat,--obscene
drawings at which the police winked. This Gendrin, a profoundly
immoral artist, had brought in women of bad lives, and made the
staircase intolerable,--conduct worthy of a man who made caricatures
of the government. And why such conduct? Because his rent had been
asked for on the 15th! Gendrin and Molineux were about to have a
lawsuit, for, though he did not pay, Gendrin insisted on holding the
empty appartement. Molineux received anonymous letters, no doubt from
Gendrin, which threatened him with assassination some night in the
passages about the Cour Batave.

"It has got to such a pass, monsieur," he said, winding up the tale,