lue cloth coat, a little rubbed and worn, and the creases and
shininess of his trousers, traces of hard wear that the clothes-brush
fails to remove, would impress a superficial observer with the idea
that here was a thrifty and upright human being, sufficient of the
philosopher or of the aristocrat to wear shabby clothes. But,
unluckily, it is easy to find penny-wise people who will prove weak,
wasteful, or incompetent in the capital things of life.

The cashier wore the ribbon of the Legion of Honor at his buttonhole,
for he had been a major of dragoons in the time of the Emperor. M. de
Nucingen, who had been a contractor before he became a banker, had had
reason in those days to know the honorable disposition of his cashier,
who then occupied a high position. Reverses of fortune had befallen the
major, and the banker out of regard for him paid him five hundred
francs a month. The soldier had become a cashier in the year 1813,
after his recovery from a wound received at Studzianka during the
Retreat from Moscow, followed by six months of enforced idleness at
Strasbourg, whither several officers had been transported by order of
the Emperor, that they might receive skilled attention. This particular
officer, Castanier by name, retired with the honorary grade of colonel,
and a pension of two thousand four hundred francs.

In ten years' time the cashier had completely effaced the soldier, and
Castanier inspired the banker with such trust in him, that he was
associated in the transactions that went on in the private office
behind his little counting-house. The baron himself had access to it by
means of a secret staircase. There, matters of business were decided.
It was the bolting room where proposals were sifted; the privy council
chamber where the reports of the money market were analyzed; circular
notes issued thence; and finally, the private ledger and the journal
which summarized the work of all the departments were kept there.

Castanier had gone himself to shut the door which opened on to a
staircase that led to the parlor occupied by the two bankers on the
first floor of their hotel. This done, he had sat down at his desk
again, and for a moment he gazed at a little collection of letters of
credit drawn on the firm of Watschildine of London. Then he had taken
up the pen and imitated the banker's signature upon each. _Nucingen_ he
wrote, and eyed the forged signatures critically to see which seemed
the most perfect