thrift. He was
determined that this should not occur again. A man might spend his
wife's money--indeed, the law placed most of it at his disposal in
those days--but he could not touch or mortgage one sou that belonged
to his father-in-law. And, strangely enough, Mme. la Marquise de
Firmin-Latour acquiesced and aided her father in his determination.
Whether it was the Jewish blood in her, or merely obedience to old
Mosenstein's whim, it were impossible to say. Certain it is that out
of the lavish pin-money which her father gave her as a free gift from
time to time, she only doled out a meagre allowance to her husband,
and although she had everything she wanted, M. le Marquis on his side
had often less than twenty francs in his pocket.

A very humiliating position, you will admit, Sir, for a dashing young
cavalry officer. Often have I seen him gnawing his finger-nails with
rage when, at the end of a copious dinner in one of the fashionable
restaurants--where I myself was engaged in a business capacity to
keep an eye on possibly light-fingered customers--it would be Mme. la
Marquise who paid the bill, even gave the pourboire to the waiter. At
such times my heart would be filled with pity for his misfortunes,
and, in my own proud and lofty independence, I felt that I did not
envy him his wife's millions.

Of course, he borrowed from every usurer in the city for as long as
they would lend him any money; but now he was up to his eyes in debt,
and there was not a Jew inside France who would have lent him one
hundred francs.

You see, his precarious position was as well known as were his
extravagant tastes and the obstinate parsimoniousness of M.
Mosenstein.

But such men as M. le Marquis de Firmin-Latour, you understand, Sir,
are destined by Nature first and by fortuitous circumstances
afterwards to become the clients of men of ability like myself. I knew
that sooner or later the elegant young soldier would be forced to seek
the advice of someone wiser than himself, for indeed his present
situation could not last much longer. It would soon be "sink" with
him, for he could no longer "swim."

And I was determined that when that time came he should turn to me as
the drowning man turns to the straw.

So where M. le Marquis went in public I went, when possible. I was
biding my time, and wisely too, as you will judge.

2.

Then one day our eyes met: not in a fashionable restaurant, I may tell
you, but in a discreet o