LXXXI. La chambre du boulanger retiré.

LXXXI

The Retired Baker's Room.

On the very evening of the day when the Count of Morcerf had left Danglars' house with a shame and a fury made conceivable by the banker's coldness, Mr. Andrea Cavalcanti, his hair curled and shining, his mustaches sharpened, his white gloves outlining his nails, had entered, almost standing in his phaeton, the courtyard of the banker on the Chaussée-d'Antin.

After ten minutes of conversation in the salon, he had found the means to lead Danglars into a window recess, and there, following an adroit preamble, he had set forth the torments of his life since the departure of his noble father. Since that departure, he had, he said, in the family of the banker, who had kindly received him as a son, found all the guarantees of happiness a man should always seek before the caprices of passion, and, as for passion itself, he had had the good fortune to encounter it in the beautiful eyes of Mlle Danglars.

Danglars listened with the most profound attention; he had already been expecting this declaration for two or three days, and when it finally arrived, his eye dilated as much as it had clouded and darkened while listening to Morcerf.

However, he did not wish to receive the young man's proposal thus without making him a few conscientious observations.

"Mr. Andrea," he said to him, "are you not a bit young to be thinking of marriage?"

"But no, sir," replied Cavalcanti, "I do not find so, at least: in Italy, noblemen generally marry young; it is a logical custom. Life is so chancy that one must seize happiness as soon as it passes within reach."

"Now, sir," said Danglars, "admitting that your proposals, which do me honor, are accepted by my wife and daughter, with whom would we discuss the settlements? It seems to me a weighty negotiation that only fathers know how to conduct properly for the happiness of their children."

"Sir, my father is a wise man, full of propriety and reason. He foresaw the probable circumstance in which I might feel the desire to settle in France: he therefore left me, upon departing, together with all the papers establishing my identity, a letter by which he assures me, in case I make a choice agreeable to him, of one hundred fifty thousand livres of income, starting from the day of my marriage. That is, as far as I can judge, a quarter of my father's revenue."

"As for me," said Danglars, "I have always intended to give my daughter five hundred thousand francs upon her marriage; moreover, she is my only heiress."

"Well," said Andrea, "you see, things would be for the best, supposing my suit is not rejected by the Baroness Danglars and by Mlle Eugénie. There we are with one hundred seventy-five thousand livres of income. Suppose a thing: that I obtain from the marquis that instead of paying me the income he gives me the capital (that would not be easy, I know well, but after all it can be done), you would make those two or three millions yield, and two or three millions in able hands can always bring in ten percent."

"I never take more than four," said the banker, "and even at three and a half. But from my son-in-law, I would take five, and we would share the profits."

"Well, marvelous, father-in-law," said Cavalcanti, letting himself be carried away by the somewhat vulgar nature which, from time to time, despite his efforts, burst through the varnish of aristocracy with which he tried to cover himself.

But immediately recovering:

"Oh! pardon, sir," he said, "you see, hope alone makes me almost mad, what then would reality do?"

"But," said Danglars, who, for his part, did not notice how much this conversation, at first disinterested, was promptly turning into a business agency, "there is doubtless a portion of your fortune that your father cannot refuse you?"

"Which?" asked the young man.

"That which comes from your mother."

"Ah! certainly, that which comes from my mother, Leonora Corsinari."

"And how much might this portion of fortune amount to?"

"Faith," said Andrea, "I assure you, sir, that I have never fixed my mind upon that subject, but I estimate it at two millions at least."

Danglars felt that kind of joyful suffocation felt by the miser who recovers a lost treasure, or by the man about to drown who finds solid ground beneath his feet instead of the void into which he was about to plunge.

"Well, sir," said Andrea, bowing to the banker with tender respect, "may I hope...."

"Mr. Andrea," said Danglars, "hope, and be assured that if no obstacle on your part arrests the progress of this affair, it is concluded. But," said Danglars, reflecting, "how is it that the Count of Monte-Cristo, your patron in this Parisian world, has not come with you to make this request of us?"

Andrea blushed imperceptibly.

"I have just come from the count, sir," he said, "he is incontestably a charming man, but of an inconceivable originality; he strongly approved of me, he even told me he did not believe my father would hesitate an instant to give me the capital instead of the income; he promised me his influence to help me obtain that from him, but he declared to me that, personally, he had never taken and would never take upon himself the responsibility of making a marriage request. But I must render him this justice, he deigned to add that if he had ever deplored this repugnance, it was on my account, since he thought the projected union would be happy and well-matched. Besides, if he will do nothing officially, he reserves the right to answer you, he told me, when you speak to him."

"Ah! very well."

"Now," said Andrea with his most charming smile, "I have finished speaking to the father-in-law and I address myself to the banker."

"What do you want of him, let us see?" said Danglars, laughing in his turn.

"It is the day after tomorrow that I have something like four thousand francs to draw from you; but the count understood that the month I was about to enter might bring a surge of expenses to which my little bachelor's income could not suffice, and here is a note for twenty thousand francs that he has, I will not say given, but offered me. It is signed by his hand, as you see; does that suit you?"

"Bring me ones like that for a million, and I take them," said Danglars, putting the note in his pocket. "Tell me your hour for tomorrow, and my cashier's boy will pass by your place with a receipt for twenty-four thousand francs."

"But at ten in the morning, if you please; the sooner the better: I would like to go to the country tomorrow."

"Agreed, at ten, at the Hôtel des Princes, as always?"

"Yes."

The next day, with a punctuality that did honor to the banker's punctuality, the twenty-four thousand francs were at the young man's; who did indeed go out, leaving two hundred francs for Caderousse. This outing on Andrea's part had the principal aim of avoiding his dangerous friend; he therefore returned as late as possible in the evening.

But scarcely had he set foot on the paved courtyard than he found before him the hotel porter, who was waiting for him, cap in hand.

"Sir," he said, "that man has come."

"What man?" asked Andrea negligently, as if he had forgotten the one of whom, on the contrary, he remembered too well.

"The one to whom Your Excellency gives that little pension."

"Ah! yes," said Andrea, "that former servant of my father. Well, you gave him the two hundred francs I had left for him."

"Yes, Excellency, precisely."

Andrea had himself called Excellency.

"But," continued the porter, "he would not take them."

Andrea turned pale; only, as it was night, no one saw him turn pale.

"What! he would not take them?" he said in a slightly moved voice.

"No! he wanted to speak to Your Excellency. I answered that you were out; he insisted. But finally he seemed to let himself be convinced, and gave me this letter that he had brought all sealed."

"Let us see," said Andrea.

He read by the lantern of his phaeton:

"You know where I live; I await you tomorrow at nine in the morning."

Andrea examined the seal to see if it had been forced and if indiscreet eyes might have penetrated the inside of the letter; but it was folded in such a way, with such a luxury of lozenges and angles, that to read it he would have had to break the seal; now, the seal was perfectly intact.

"Very well," he said. "Poor man! he is a most excellent creature."

And he left the porter edified by these words, and not knowing which he ought to admire the more, the young master or the old servant.

"Unharness quickly, and come up to my room," said Andrea to his groom.

In two bounds, the young man was in his chamber and had burned Caderousse's letter, of which he made even the ashes disappear.

He was finishing this operation when the servant entered.

"You are of my size, Pierre," he said to him.

"I have that honor, Excellency," replied the valet.

"You must have a new livery that was brought to you yesterday?"

"Yes, sir."

"I have business with a little grisette to whom I wish to say neither my title nor my condition. Lend me your livery and bring me your papers, so that I may, if need be, sleep at an inn."

Pierre obeyed.

Five minutes later, Andrea, completely disguised, left the hotel without being recognized, took a cabriolet and had himself driven to the Red Horse inn, at Picpus.

The next day, he left the Red Horse inn as he had left the Hôtel des Princes, that is to say without being noticed, went down the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, took the boulevard as far as the Rue Ménilmontant, and, stopping at the door of the third house on the left, sought whom he might ask for information in the concierge's absence.

"What are you looking for, my pretty boy?" asked the fruit woman across the way.

"Mr. Pailletin, if you please, my good fat mama?" answered Andrea.

"A retired baker?" asked the fruit woman.

"Exactly, that is it."

"At the back of the courtyard, to the left, on the third floor."

Andrea took the indicated path, and on the third floor found a door knocker which he shook with a feeling of ill humor that the precipitous movement of the bell betrayed.

A second later, Caderousse's face appeared at the grating set in the door.

"Ah! you are punctual," he said.

And he drew the bolts.

"Of course!" said Andrea entering.

And he flung his livery cap before him which, missing the chair, fell to the ground and made the tour of the room rolling on its circumference.

"Come, come," said Caderousse, "don't get angry, little one! See, I thought of you, look at the good breakfast we shall have: nothing but things you like, blast the air!"

Andrea indeed felt, in breathing, an odor of cooking whose coarse aromas were not without a certain charm for a famished stomach; it was that mixture of fresh fat and garlic which marks the lower-order Provençal cuisine; it was besides a taste of gratinated fish, then, above all, the sharp perfume of nutmeg and clove. All this exhaled from two deep covered dishes, placed on two stoves, and from a saucepan that hissed in the oven of a cast-iron stove.

In the next room, Andrea further saw a rather clean table adorned with two settings, two sealed bottles of wine, one green, the other yellow, a good measure of brandy in a carafe, and a macédoine of fruits in a broad cabbage leaf artistically placed on an earthenware plate.

"What do you think of it, little one?" said Caderousse, "eh, how it smells! Ah! lord! you know, I was a good cook back there! Do you remember how we licked our fingers at my cooking? And you first of all, you tasted my sauces, and you did not despise them, I believe."

And Caderousse began to peel a supplement of onions.

"That's good, that's good," said Andrea with ill humor, "by God! if it is to breakfast with you that you disturbed me, the devil take you!"

"My son," said Caderousse sententiously, eating as he spoke; "and then, ingrate that you are, have you no pleasure in seeing a friend a bit? Me, I weep for joy."

Caderousse was indeed really weeping; only, it would have been difficult to say if it was joy or the onions that acted upon the lacrymal gland of the former innkeeper of the Pont du Gard.

"Hold your tongue, hypocrite," said Andrea, "you love me, you?"

"Yes, I love you, or the devil take me; it is a weakness," said Caderousse, "I know it well, but it is stronger than me."

"Which does not prevent you from having made me come for some perfidy."

"Come now!" said Caderousse, wiping his broad knife on his apron, "if I did not love you, would I endure the miserable life you make me live? Look here, you have your servant's suit on your back, therefore you have a servant; me, I have none, and I am forced to peel my vegetables myself: you scorn my cooking, because you dine at the table d'hôte of the Hôtel des Princes or at the Café de Paris. Well, I too could have a servant; I too could have a tilbury; I too could dine where I wished: well, why do I deprive myself of it? to avoid distressing my little Benedetto. Come, admit only that I could, eh?"

And a perfectly clear glance from Caderousse closed the sense of the phrase.

"Good," said Andrea, "let us suppose you love me: then why do you insist that I come breakfast with you?"

"But to see you, little one."

"To see me, what for? since we have already made all our conditions in advance."

"Eh! dear friend," said Caderousse, "are there wills without codicils? But you came to breakfast first, didn't you? Well, see, sit down, and let us begin with these sardines and this fresh butter, that I put on vine leaves for your sake, wicked one. Ah! yes, you are looking at my room, my four straw chairs, my three-franc framed pictures. Lord! what would you have, it is not the Hôtel des Princes."

"Come, now you are disgusted; you are no longer happy, you who asked only to look like a retired baker."

Caderousse sighed.

"Well, what have you to say? you have seen your dream realized."

"I have to say that it is a dream, a retired baker, my poor Benedetto, is rich, has an income."

"By God! you have an income."

"Me?"

"Yes, you, since I bring you your two hundred francs."

Caderousse shrugged his shoulders.

"It is humiliating," he said, "to receive money given grudgingly, ephemeral money, which may fail me from one day to the next. You see well that I am forced to economize for the case where your prosperity might not last. Eh! my friend, fortune is inconstant, as the chaplain of the regiment used to say. I know well that it is immense, your prosperity, scoundrel; you are going to marry Danglars' daughter."

"What! Danglars' daughter?"

"And certainly, Danglars' daughter! Must I not say Baron Danglars? It is as if I said Count Benedetto. He was a friend, Danglars, and if he did not have such a bad memory, he ought to invite me to your wedding... seeing that he came to mine... yes, yes, yes, to mine! Lord! he was not so proud in those days; he was a small clerk for that good Mr. Morrel. I have dined more than once with him and the Count of Morcerf.... Go, you see I have fine acquaintances and that if I wished to cultivate them a little, we would meet in the same salons."

"Come now, your jealousy makes you see rainbows, Caderousse."

"That's all right, Benedetto mio, one knows what one says. Perhaps one day too one will put on one's Sunday suit, and go say at a coach gate: 'The cord, if you please!' Meanwhile, sit down and let us eat."

Caderousse gave the example and began to breakfast with good appetite, and in praising all the dishes he served his guest.

The latter seemed to make up his mind, bravely uncorked the bottles and attacked the bouillabaisse and the cod gratinated with garlic and oil.

"Ah! comrade," said Caderousse, "it seems you are making up with your former maître d'hôtel?"

"Faith, yes," replied Andrea, in whom, young and vigorous as he was, appetite for the moment carried the day over everything else.

"And you find it good, rogue?"

"So good that I do not understand how a man who fries and eats such good things can find life bad."

"You see," said Caderousse, "it is that all my happiness is spoiled by a single thought."

"Which?"

"It is that I live at the expense of a friend, I who have always bravely earned my own living."

"Oh! oh! as for that, do not worry," said Andrea, "I have enough for two, do not restrain yourself."

"No, truly; you will believe me if you will, at the end of every month, I have remorse."

"Good Caderousse!"

"To the point that yesterday I would not take the two hundred francs."

"Yes, you wanted to speak to me; but was it really remorse, let us see?"

"True remorse; and then an idea had come to me."

Andrea shuddered; he always shuddered at Caderousse's ideas.

"It is miserable, you see," continued the latter, "to be always waiting for the end of a month."

"Eh!" said Andrea philosophically, decided to see what his companion was driving at, "does not life pass in waiting? I, for example, do I do anything else? Well, I am patient, am I not?"

"Yes, because instead of waiting for two hundred miserable francs, you wait for five or six thousand, perhaps ten, perhaps even twelve; for you are a close one: back there, you always had little money boxes, savings banks that you tried to hide from that poor friend Caderousse. Fortunately the friend Caderousse in question had a fine nose."

"Come, there you go raving again," said Andrea, "talking and retalking always of the past! But what good is it to harp on thus, I ask you?"

"Ah! it is that you are twenty-one, you, and can forget the past; I am fifty, and am forced to remember it. But never mind, let us return to business."

"Yes."

"I was going to say that if I were in your place...."

"Well?"

"I would realize...."

"How! you would realize...."

"Yes, I would ask for a half-year in advance, under pretext that I want to become eligible and am going to buy a farm; then with my half-year I would decamp."

"Well, well, well," made Andrea, "that is not badly thought, that, perhaps!"

"My dear friend," said Caderousse, "eat of my cooking and follow my advice; you will not find yourself the worse for it, physically and morally."

"Well, but," said Andrea, "why are you not yourself the counsel you give? why do you not realize a half-year, a year even, and retire to Brussels? Instead of looking like a retired baker, you would look like a bankrupt in the exercise of his functions: that is much in fashion."

"But how the devil do you expect me to retire with twelve hundred francs?"

"Ah! Caderousse," said Andrea, "how exigent you are becoming! Two months ago you were starving."

"Appetite comes with eating," said Caderousse, showing his teeth like a laughing monkey or a growling tiger. "Also," he added, cutting with those same teeth, so white and so sharp despite his age, an enormous mouthful of bread, "I have made a plan."

Caderousse's plans terrified Andrea even more than his ideas; the ideas were only the germ, the plan was the realization.

"Let us see this plan," he said; "it must be pretty!"

"Why not? The plan by which we left the establishment of Mr. What's-his-name, whose was it, eh? mine, I suppose; it was not the worse for that, it seems to me, since here we are!"

"I do not say," replied Andrea, "you are sometimes good for something; but come, let us see your plan."

"Let us see," pursued Caderousse, "can you, you, without laying out a sou, make me have some fifteen thousand francs... no, fifteen thousand is not enough, I will not become an honest man for less than thirty thousand francs?"

"No," answered Andrea dryly, "no, I cannot."

"You did not understand me, it appears," replied Caderousse coldly with a calm air; "I said to you without laying out a sou."

"Do you want me to steal, to spoil all my affair, and yours with mine, and have us sent back there?"

"Oh! me," said Caderousse, "it is all the same to me if they take me back; I am a queer body, you know: I sometimes get bored with the comrades; it is not like you, heartless one, who would never wish to see them again!"

Andrea did more than shudder this time, he turned pale.

"See here, Caderousse, no nonsense," he said.

"Eh! no, be easy, my little Benedetto; but just indicate to me a little means of gaining those thirty thousand francs without your mixing in anything; you will let me do it, that is all!"

"Well, I will see, I will search," said Andrea.

"But, meanwhile, you will raise my month to five hundred francs, I have a mania, I would like to take a mistress!"

"Well, you shall have your five hundred francs," said Andrea: "but it is heavy for me, my poor Caderousse... you abuse...."

"Bah!" said Caderousse; "since you draw from coffers that have no bottom."

One would have said Andrea was awaiting his companion there, so much did his eye flash with a rapid lightning which, it is true, was extinguished at once.

"That, that is the truth," replied Andrea, "and my protector is excellent to me."

"That dear protector!" said Caderousse; "thus he makes you per month?..."

"Five thousand francs," said Andrea.

"As many thousands as you make me hundreds," resumed Caderousse; "truly, only bastards have luck. Five thousand francs a month.... What the devil can one do with all that?"

"Eh, my God! it is soon spent; also, I am like you, I would like very much to have a capital."

"A capital... yes... I understand, everyone would like to have a capital."

"Well, I shall have one."

"And who will make it for you? your prince?"

"Yes, my prince; unfortunately I must wait."

"That you wait for what?" asked Caderousse.

"His death."

"The death of your prince?"

"Yes."

"How so?"

"Because he has named me in his will."

"Truly?"

"Word of honor!"

"For how much?"

"For five hundred thousand!"

"Only that; thanks for the little."

"It is as I tell you."

"Come now, impossible!"

"Caderousse, are you my friend?"

"How else! for life, for death."

"Well, I am going to tell you a secret."

"Speak."

"But listen."

"Oh! by God! mute as a carp."

"Well, I believe...."

Andrea stopped, looking around him.

"You believe?... Have no fear, by God! we are alone."

"I believe I have found my father."

"Your true father?"

"Yes."

"Not father Cavalcanti."

"No, since that one has gone back; the true one, as you say."

"And this father, it is...."

"Well, Caderousse, it is the Count of Monte-Cristo."

"Bah!"

"Yes; you understand, then all is explained. He cannot avow me openly, it seems, but he has me recognized by Mr. Cavalcanti, to whom he gives fifty thousand francs for that."

"Fifty thousand francs to be your father! Me, I would have accepted for half price, for twenty thousand, for fifteen thousand! How is it you did not think of me?"

"How could I know that, since all was done while we were back there?"

"Ah! it is true. And you say that, by his will...?"

"He leaves me five hundred thousand livres."

"Are you sure of it?"

"He showed it to me; but that is not all."

"There is a codicil, as I was saying just now!"

"Probably."

"And in this codicil?..."

"He acknowledges me."

"Oh! the good father, the brave father, the most honest of fathers!" said Caderousse, making a plate spin in the air which he caught between his two hands.

"There! say again that I have secrets from you!"

"No, and your confidence does you honor in my eyes. And your prince of a father, he is then rich, rich indeed?"

"I should say so. He does not know his fortune."

"Is it possible?"

"Lord! I see it well, I who am received at his house at any hour. The other day, it was a bank clerk who brought him fifty thousand francs in a portfolio as big as your napkin; yesterday, it was a banker who brought him a hundred thousand francs in gold."

Caderousse was dumbfounded; it seemed to him that the young man's words had the sound of metal, and that he heard cascades of louis rolling.

"And you go into that house?" cried he with naïveté.

"When I wish."

Caderousse remained pensive an instant. It was easy to see he was turning over some deep thought in his mind.

Then suddenly:

"How I should like to see all that!" cried he, "and how beautiful all that must be!"

"The fact is," said Andrea, "that it is magnificent!"

"And does he not live on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées?"

"Number thirty."

"Ah!" said Caderousse, "number thirty?"

"Yes, a fine detached house, between court and garden, you know only that."

"That is possible; but it is not the exterior that concerns me, it is the interior: the fine furniture, eh! what there must be in there?"

"Have you ever seen the Tuileries?"

"No."

"Well, it is finer."

"Tell me, Andrea, it must be good to stoop down when that good Monte-Cristo drops his purse?"

"Oh! my God! there is no need to wait for that moment," said Andrea, "money lies about in that house like fruit in an orchard."

"Tell me, you ought to take me there one day with you."

"Is that possible! and under what title?"

"You are right; but you have made my mouth water; I absolutely must see that; I shall find a means."

"No nonsense, Caderousse!"

"I shall present myself as a floor-scrubber."

"There are carpets everywhere."

"Ah! pest! then I must content myself with seeing that in imagination."

"That is the best, believe me."

"At least try to make me understand what that can be."

"How do you wish?..."

"Nothing easier. Is it large?"

"Neither too large nor too small."

"But how is it laid out?"

"Lord! I would need ink and paper to make a plan."

"There you are!" said Caderousse quickly.

And he went to fetch from an old secretary a sheet of white paper, ink and a pen.

"Here," said Caderousse, "trace me all that on paper, my son."

Andrea took the pen with an imperceptible smile and began.

"The house, as I told you, is between court and garden, you see, like this?"

And Andrea drew the outline of the garden, the court and the house.

"High walls?"

"No, eight or ten feet at most."

"That is not prudent," said Caderousse.

"In the court, boxes of orange trees, lawns, flower beds."

"And no wolf-traps?"

"No."

"The stables?"

"On the two sides of the gate, where you see, there."

Andrea continued his plan.

"Let us see the ground floor," said Caderousse.

"On the ground floor, dining room, two salons, billiard room, staircase in the vestibule, and a small hidden staircase."

"Windows?..."

"Magnificent windows, so fine, so wide that, faith, yes, I believe a man of your size would pass through each pane."

"Why the devil have stairs, when one has windows like that?"

"What would you have! luxury."

"But shutters?"

"Yes, shutters, but which are never used. An original, that Count of Monte-Cristo, who likes to see the sky even at night!"

"And the servants, where do they sleep?"

"Oh! they have their own house. Picture a pretty shed to the right on entering, where ladders are stored. Well, there is above this shed a collection of rooms for the servants, with bells corresponding to the chambers."

"Ah! the devil! bells!"

"You say?..."

"Me, nothing. I say that it costs very dear to put in bells; and what is it good for, I ask you?"

"Formerly there was a dog that walked in the court at night, but they sent him to the house at Auteuil, you know, the one you came to?"

"Yes."

"Me, I was still saying to him yesterday: 'It is imprudent of you, Count, for when you go to Auteuil and take your servants, the house remains alone.'"

"Well, did he ask after?"

"Well, after, some fine day they will rob you."

"What did he answer?"

"What he answered?"

"Yes."

"He answered: 'Well, what does it matter to me if I am robbed?'"

"Andrea, there is some mechanical secretary."

"How so?"

"Yes, that catches the thief in a grate and plays an air. I was told there were some like that at the last exhibition."

"He simply has a mahogany secretary at which I have always seen the key."

"And they do not rob him?"

"No, the people who serve him are wholly devoted to him."

"There must be, in that secretary, eh! some coin?"

"There may be... one cannot know what is there."

"And where is it?"

"On the first floor."

"Make me a bit the plan of the first floor, little one, as you made me that of the ground floor."

"That is easy."

And Andrea took up the pen.

"On the first floor, you see, there is an antechamber, a salon; to the right of the salon, a library and a study; to the left of the salon, a bedroom and a dressing room. It is in the dressing room that the famous secretary is."

"And a window to the dressing room?"

"Two, there and there."

And Andrea drew two windows on the piece which, on the plan, made the corner and figured as a smaller square added to the long rectangle of the bedroom.

Caderousse became dreamy.

"And does he often go to Auteuil?" he asked.

"Two or three times a week; tomorrow, for example, he is to go spend the day and night there."

"Are you sure of it?"

"He invited me to go dine there."

"That's the thing! there is a life," said Caderousse: "house in town, house in the country!"

"That is what it is to be rich."

"And will you go dine?"

"Probably."

"When you dine there, do you sleep there?"

"When it pleases me. I am at the count's like at my own home."

Caderousse looked at the young man as if to tear the truth from the bottom of his heart. But Andrea drew a cigar case from his pocket, took a Havana, lit it tranquilly and began to smoke without affectation.

"When do you want the five hundred francs?" he asked Caderousse.

"Why, right away, if you have them."

Andrea drew twenty-five louis from his pocket.

"Yellow boys," said Caderousse; "no, thanks!"

"Well, you scorn them?"

"I esteem them, on the contrary, but I do not want them."

"You will lose on the exchange, imbecile: gold is worth five sous."

"That's it, and then the money-changer will have the friend Caderousse followed, and then they will lay hands on him, and then he will have to say who are the farmers who pay him his dues in gold. No nonsense, little one: money simply, round pieces with the effigy of some monarch or other. Anyone can come by a five-franc piece."

"You understand well that I do not have five hundred francs on me: I would have had to take a commissionaire."

"Well, leave them at your place, with your porter, he is a brave man, I will go get them."

"Today?"

"No, tomorrow; today I have no time."

"Well, agreed; tomorrow, on leaving for Auteuil, I will leave them."

"Can I count on it?"

"Perfectly."

"It is that I am going to engage my mistress in advance, you see."

"Engage her. But that will be finished, eh? you will torment me no more?"

"Never."

Caderousse had become so gloomy that Andrea feared being forced to notice the change. He redoubled therefore in gaiety and carelessness.

"How merry you are," said Caderousse; "one would say you already hold your inheritance!"

"Not at all, unfortunately!... But the day I hold it...."

"Well?"

"Well, one will remember friends; I tell you only that."

"Yes, as you have a good memory, precisely!"

"What would you have? I thought you wanted to ransom me."

"Me! oh! what an idea! me who, on the contrary, am going to give you a friend's advice yet."

"Which?"

"It is to leave here the diamond you have on your finger. Ah there! but you want to get us taken? you want to ruin us both, that you do such follies?"

"Why so?" said Andrea.

"How! you take a livery, you disguise yourself as a servant, and you keep on your finger a diamond of four or five thousand francs!"

"Plague! you estimate fair! Why do you not make yourself an auctioneer?"

"It is that I know about diamonds; I have had some."

"I advise you to boast of it," said Andrea, who, without getting angry, as Caderousse feared, at this new extortion, complaisantly handed over the ring.

Caderousse looked at it so closely that it was clear to Andrea he was examining whether the facets of the cut were sharp.

"It is a false diamond," said Caderousse.

"Come now, are you joking?" said Andrea.

"Oh! do not get angry, one can see."

And Caderousse went to the window, made the diamond glide on the pane; the glass was heard to cry out.

"Confiteor!" said Caderousse, passing the diamond onto his little finger, "I was mistaken; but these thieving jewelers imitate stones so well that one no longer dares go stealing in the jewelry shops. That is yet another branch of industry paralyzed."

"Well," said Andrea, "is that finished? have you anything more to ask me? Do not restrain yourself while you are at it."

"No, you are a good companion at bottom. I will not detain you longer, and I shall try to cure myself of my ambition."

"But take care that in selling this diamond, there does not happen to you what you feared would happen to you for the gold."

"I will not sell it, be easy."

"No, not before the day after tomorrow at least," thought the young man.

"Happy rogue!" said Caderousse, "you are going back to your lackeys, your horses, your carriage and your fiancée."

"But yes," said Andrea.

"Tell me, I hope you will make me a pretty wedding gift the day you marry my friend Danglars' daughter."

"I already told you it was an idea you got into your head."

"How much dowry?"

"But I tell you...."

"A million?"

Andrea shrugged his shoulders.

"Go for a million," said Caderousse, "you will never have as much as I wish you."

"Thanks," said the young man.

"Oh! it is from the heart," added Caderousse, laughing his big laugh. "Wait, let me see you out."

"That is not necessary."

"Yes it is."

"Why?"

"Oh! because there is a little secret at the door; it is a precaution I thought fit to adopt; lock by Huret and Fichet, revised and corrected by Gaspard Caderousse. I will make you one like it when you are a capitalist."

"Thanks," said Andrea; "I will have you warned a week in advance."

They parted. Caderousse remained on the landing until he had seen Andrea not only descend the three floors, but also cross the courtyard. Then he re-entered precipitately, carefully closed the door, and set himself to study, as a profound architect, the plan Andrea had left him.

"That dear Benedetto," said he, "I believe he would not be angry at inheriting, and that he who advances the day when he is to pocket his five hundred thousand francs will not be his worst friend."

“Stories of the world, in your language.”