g
the savages in the United States.' I carried away with me the drop of
vinegar which casual gossip thus put into my heart, and it soured all
my feelings. I went to see my old master, in whose office Mongenod and I
had studied law; he was now my counsel. When I told him about my loan to
Mongenod and the manner in which I had acted,--'What!' he cried, 'one of
my old clerks to behave in that way! You ought to have put him off till
the next day and come to see me. You would then have found out that I
have forbidden my clerks to let Mongenod into this office. Within the
last year he has borrowed three hundred francs of me in silver,--an
enormous sum at present rates. Three days before he breakfasted with
you I met him on the street, and he gave such a piteous account of his
poverty that I let him have two louis.' 'If I have been the dupe of a
clever comedian,' I said to Bordin, 'so much the worse for him, not for
me. But tell me what to do.' 'You must try to get from him a written
acknowledgment; for a debtor, however, insolvent he may be, may become
solvent, and then he will pay.' Thereupon Bordin took from a tin box a
case on which I saw the name of Mongenod; he showed me three receipts
of a hundred francs each. 'The next time he comes I shall have him
admitted, and I shall make him add the interest and the two louis, and
give me a note for the whole. I shall, at any rate, have things properly
done, and be in a position to obtain payment.' 'Well,' said I to Bordin,
'can you have my matter set right so far, as well as yours? for I know
you are a good man, and what you do will be right.' 'I have remained
master of my ground,' he said; 'but when persons behave as you have done
they are at the mercy of a man who can snap his fingers at them. As for
me, I don't choose that any man should get the better of me,--get the
better of a former attorney to the Chatelet!--ta-ra-ra! Every man to
whom a sum of money is lent as heedlessly as you lent yours to Mongenod,
ends, after a certain time, by thinking that money his own. It is no
longer your money, it is _his_ money; you become his creditor,--an
inconvenient, unpleasant person. A debtor will then try to get rid of
you by some juggling with his conscience, and out of one hundred men in
his position, seventy-five will do their best never to see or hear
of you again.' 'Then you think only twenty-five men in a hundred
are honest?' 'Did I say that?' he replied, smiling maliciously. 'The