CHAPTER I

      M. SAUVAIRE, THE MASTER-STEVEDORE

      CADET COUGOURDAN’S employer, the master-stevedore Sauvaire, was a short, lively, dark man with thickset powerful limbs. His great hooked nose, thin lips and elongated visage, were expressive of that vainglorious confidence and artful bragging which are the distinctive features of certain types in the south of France.

      Brought up in the port, a simple labourer in his youth, he had saved up his earnings for ten years. He raised enormous weights and was possessed of vigorous strength that did wonders. He was in the habit of saying he did not fear big men.

      The truth was that this dwarf could have thrashed a giant. But he displayed prudence and wisdom in the use he made of his power, avoiding quarrels, knowing that the tension of his muscles was worth money, and that a blow with the fist only brings trouble. He lived soberly, given up entirely to work and avarice, impatient to attain the end he dreamed of.

      At last he had before him the few thousand francs he required to accomplish his object. He became a master from one day to another, took men into his employ, and with folded arms watched them toiling and perspiring. From time to time he gave them a little help with a grumble.

      Sauvaire, at the bottom, was a downright lazy fellow; he had worked out of obstinacy, preferring to perform his indolence of a wealthy man. Now that he had poor wretches to win him a fortune, he walked about with his hands in his pockets, piling up money, waiting until he had amassed a large sum to satisfy his instincts of free and noisy life.

      Little by little the avaricious workman became transformed into a wealthy prodigal. Sauvaire was possessed of a tremendous appetite for wealth and pleasure: he wished to have plenty of money in order to enjoy himself beyond measure, and he desired to do that, so as to show he had plenty of money. He was urged on by the vanity of a parvenu to make his pleasures fiendishly riotous. When he laughed he insisted on all Marseille hearing his peal of merriment.

      He now wore clothes fashioned out of fine cloth, under which it was easy to distinguish the stiff limbs of the former workman. A heavy gold chain was spread out across his waistcoat, it was as thick as one’s finger and from it hung a bunch of massive charms which seemed almost sufficient to stun an ox. On the left hand he wore a gold ring without any stone. With patent leather shoes on his feet and a soft felt hat on his head he sauntered up and down the Cannebière and round about the Port all day, smoking a magnificent meerschaum pipe mounted in silver; and, as he walked along he made the charms dance on his stomach, while his eyes wandered over the crowd with a half-bantering, half-kindly expression. He was enjoying himself.

      Sauvaire had, little by little, entrusted the management of his business to Cadet Cougourdan, whose smart manners pleased him: this youth of twenty summers was gifted with an upright and candid mind that gave him positive superiority over the other stevedores. The master was delighted at having such a workman at his elbow; he appointed him overseer of the men working for him, and from that moment was able to make a grand display in Marseille of his natural desires. He limited his work to making up his accounts in the morning and pocketing the money that had been earned.

      The existence he had been dreaming of commenced.

      Sauvaire became a member of a club. He gambled, but prudently, being of opinion that the pleasure derived from the card-table is not worth what it costs; he wanted his money’s worth of amusement and he therefore sought after substantial and lasting enjoyment. He dined at the best eating-houses, and associated with ladies whom he showed off in public. His vanity was deliciously tickled when he was able to lounge on the cushions of a carriage beside a huge silk skirt. The lady was nothing, the silk gown all. He dragged it into private dining-rooms and there threw the windows open, so that all the passersby might see that he was having a rare time with a well-dressed lady, and ordering expensive dishes. Others would have closed the shutters and bolted the door; his dream was to kiss his fair companions in a glass house, so that the multitude might know that he was wealthy enough to love such pretty creatures. He had his own idea of love.

      For a month he had been living in rapture. He had met a young woman whose acquaintance tickled his self-esteem. This young person was protected by a Count and was looked upon as one of the Queens of the demimonde at Marseille. She called herself Thérèse-Armande but was better known by the familiar name of Armande.

      When Armande placed her little gloved hand in Sauvaire’s huge paw for the first time, the master-stevedore almost fainted with delight. This pressure of the hand was exchanged in the Alices de Meilhan, opposite the door of the house where the lorette resided, and the passersby stopped and turned round, at the sight of this man and young woman, smiling and bowing to each other. Sauvaire went off bursting with pride, and in ecstasies about Armande’s dress and superior manners. He had but one thought: that of protecting this person himself, supplanting the Count and walking about with lace and velvet leaning on his arm.

      He watched for Armande and placed himself in her path. He fell in love with the luxuriant finery she wore, and the perfumery that escaped from her clothes. He was proud at getting a bow from her, at appearing to be one of her friends, and it would certainly