Larsonneau had become an elegant man about town, well gloved, with dazzling linen and astounding neckties. To go about he had a tilbury as light as a piece of clock-work, with a very high seat, and which he drove himself. His offices in the Rue de Rivoli were a set of sumptuous rooms in which one never saw the least portfolio or business paper lying about. His clerks wrote on tables of blackened pear-wood adorned with marquetry and ornaments of chased brass. He had assumed the style and title of an expropriation agent, a new calling which the works of Paris had brought into being. By his connection with the Hôtel de Ville he was informed in advance of the cutting of any new thoroughfares. When he had induced a road inspector to show him the proposed line of route of a new Boulevard, he went to offer his services to the threatened householders. And he brought forward his little plan for increasing the indemnity by acting before the decree of public utility was issued. As soon as a householder accepted his proposals, he took all the expense on himself, drew a plan of the property, brought the affair before the courts and paid an advocate, the whole for a percentage on the difference between the offer made by the city and the indemnity awarded by the jury. To this calling, which after all might be avowed, he annexed several others. He especially practised usury. He was not the usurer of the old school, ragged and dirty, with white expressionless eyes like five franc pieces, and pale lips tightly drawn together like the strings of a purse. He smiled, gave charming glances, had himself dressed by Dusautoy, and went to lunch at Brébant's with his victim, whom he called "My dear fellow" when he offered him an havannah at dessert. At bottom, despite his waistcoats tightly buckled round his waist, Larsonneau was a terrible fellow who, without losing aught of his amiability, would have prosecuted a debtor for payment of a bill until the unfortunate man was reduced to commit suicide.
Saccard would willingly have chosen another partner. But he still entertained anxiety respecting the false inventory which Larsonneau preciously preserved. So he preferred to interest him in the affair, hoping that he would be able to profit by some circumstance to regain possession of this compromising document. Larsonneau built the music-hall, an edifice in planks and plaster, surmounted by little tin belfries which he painted red and yellow. The garden and the games proved successful in the populous district of Charonne. At the end of a couple of years the speculation seemed a prosperous one, although the profits were in reality very small. So far, Saccard had always spoken enthusiastically to his wife concerning the prospects of such a fine idea.