A ring with a coat of arms adorned his hand, outside his glove, from which dangled a handsome cane; with these accessories he endeavoured to assume the air and manner of a wealthy young man.

After the office closed he appeared in the great walk of the Tuileries, with a tooth-pick in his mouth, as though he were a millionaire who had just dined.

Always on the lookout for a woman,--an Englishwoman, a foreigner of some kind, or a widow,--who might fall in love with him, he practised the art of twirling his cane and of flinging the sort of glance which Bixiou told him was American.

He smiled to show his fine teeth; he wore no socks under his boots, but he had his hair curled every day.

Vimeux was prepared, in accordance with fixed principles, to marry a hunch-back with six thousand a year, or a woman of forty-five at eight thousand, or an Englishwoman for half that sum.