ister. One hundred thousand
francs for a throat, one hundred thousand francs for a couple of
ankle-bones,--those are the two financial scourges of the Opera."

"I am amazed," said Gazonal, "at the hundreds of thousands of francs
walking about here."

"We'll amaze you a good deal more, my dear cousin," said Leon de Lora.
"We'll take Paris as an artist takes his violoncello, and show you how
it is played,--in short, how people amuse themselves in Paris."

"It is a kaleidoscope with a circumference of twenty miles," cried
Gazonal.

"Before piloting monsieur about, I have to see Gaillard," said Bixiou.

"But we can use Gaillard for the cousin," replied Leon.

"What sort of machine is that?" asked Gazonal.

"He isn't a machine, he is a machinist. Gaillard is a friend of ours who
has ended a miscellaneous career by becoming the editor of a newspaper,
and whose character and finances are governed by movements comparable
to those of the tides. Gaillard can contribute to make you win your
lawsuit--"

"It is lost."

"That's the very moment to win it," replied Bixiou.

When they reached Theodore Gaillard's abode, which was now in the rue
de Menars, the valet ushered the three friends into a boudoir and asked
them to wait, as monsieur was in secret conference.

"With whom?" asked Bixiou.

"With a man who is selling him the incarceration of an _unseizable_
debtor," replied a handsome woman who now appeared in a charming morning
toilet.

"In that case, my dear Suzanne," said Bixiou, "I am certain we may go
in."

"Oh! what a beautiful creature!" said Gazonal.

"That is Madame Gaillard," replied Leon de Lora, speaking low into his
cousin's ear. "She is the most humble-minded woman in Paris, for she had
the public and has contented herself with a husband."

"What is your will, messeigneurs?" said the facetious editor, seeing his
two friends and imitating Frederic Lemaitre.

Theodore Gaillard, formerly a wit, had ended by becoming a stupid man in
consequence of remaining constantly in one centre,--a moral phenomenon
frequently to be observed in Paris. His principal method of conversation
consisted in sowing his speeches with sayings taken from plays then in
vogue and pronounced in imitation of well-known actors.

"We have come to blague," said Leon.

"'Again, young men'" (Odry in the Saltimbauques).

"Well, this time, we've got him, sure," said Gaillard's other visitor,
apparently by way of conclusion.

"_Are_