"Oh! oh!" murmured the _intendant_, with surprise, "who is yonder?
I did not expect anybody to-day." And without doubt, to respond to the signal, he pulled out a gilded nail near the glass, and shook it thrice.

Then returning to his place, and seating himself again, "_Ma foi!_ let them wait," said he.

And plunging again into the ocean of papers unrolled before him, he appeared to think of nothing now but work.

In fact, with incredible rapidity and marvelous lucidity, Fouquet deciphered the largest papers and most complicated writings, correcting them, annotating them with a pen moved as if by a fever, and the work melting under his hands, signatures, figures, references, became multiplied as if ten clerks--that is to say, a hundred fingers and ten brains had performed the duties, instead of the five fingers and single brain of this man.

From time to time, only, Fouquet, absorbed by his work, raised his head to cast a furtive glance upon a clock placed before him.