FullReads

“Pooh!” said Nathan. “She did not stay in it six months. She was too handsome to keep a reading-room.”

“Perhaps you are the father of her child?” suggested the lorette.

Desroches resumed.

“Since the firm bought up Maxime’s debts, Cerizet’s likeness to a bailiff’s officer grew more and more striking, and one morning after seven fruitless attempts he succeeded in penetrating into the Count’s presence. Suzon, the old man-servant, albeit he was by no means in his novitiate, at last mistook the visitor for a petitioner, come to propose a thousand crowns if Maxime would obtain a license to sell postage stamps for a young lady. Suzon, without the slightest suspicion of the little scamp, a thoroughbred Paris street-boy into whom prudence had been rubbed by repeated personal experience of the police-courts, induced his master to receive him. Can you see the man of business, with an uneasy eye, a bald forehead, and scarcely any hair on his head, standing in his threadbare jacket and muddy boots–“

“What a picture of a Dun!” cried Lousteau.

“–standing before the Count, that image of flaunting Debt, in his blue flannel dressing-gown, slippers worked by some Marquise or other, trousers of white woolen stuff, and a dazzling shirt? There he stood, with a gorgeous cap on his black dyed hair, playing with the tassels at his waist–“

” ‘Tis a bit of genre for anybody who knows what the pretty little morning room, hung with silk and full of valuable paintings, where Maxime breakfasts,” said Nathan. “You tread on a Smyrna carpet, you admire the sideboards filled with curiosities and rarities fit to make a King of Saxony envious–“

“Now for the scene itself,” said Desroches, and the deepest silence followed.

” ‘Monsieur le Comte,’ began Cerizet, ‘I have come from a M. Charles Claparon, who used to be a banker–‘

” ‘Ah! poor devil, and what does he want with me?’

” ‘Well, he is at present your creditor for a matter of three thousand two hundred francs, seventy-five centimes, principal, interest, and costs–‘

” ‘Coutelier’s business?’ put in Maxime, who knew his affairs as a pilot knows his coast.

” ‘Yes, Monsieur le Comte,’ said Cerizet with a bow. ‘I have come to ask your intentions.’

” ‘I shall only pay when the fancy takes me,’ returned Maxime, and he rang for Suzon. ‘It was very rash of Claparon to buy up bills of mine without speaking to me beforehand. I am sorry for him, for he did so very well for such a long time as a man of straw for friends of mine. I always said that a man must really be weak in his intellect to work for men that stuff themselves with millions, and to serve them so faithfully for such low wages. And now here he gives me another proof of his stupidity! Yes, men deserve what they get. It is your own doing whether you get a crown on your forehead or a bullet through your head; whether you are a millionaire or a porter, justice is always done you. I cannot help it, my dear fellow; I myself am not a king, I stick to my principles. I have no pity for those that put me to expense or do not know their business as creditors.–Suzon! my tea! Do you see this gentleman?’ he continued when the man came in. ‘Well, you have allowed yourself to be taken in, poor old boy. This gentleman is a creditor; you ought to have known him by his boots. No friend nor foe of mine, nor those that are neither and want something of me, come to see me on foot.–My dear M. Cerizet, do you understand? You will not wipe your boots on my carpet again’ (looking as he spoke at the mud that whitened the enemy’s soles). ‘Convey my compliments and sympathy to Claparon, poor buffer, for I shall file this business under the letter Z.’

“All this with an easy good-humor fit to give a virtuous citizen the colic.