ook out for business of
this kind. I will recommend you as a most competent, clever attorney. I
will send you such a lot of work of this sort that your colleagues will
be fit to burst with envy. Werbrust, Palma, and Gigonnet, my cronies,
shall hand over their expropriations to you; they have plenty of them,
the Lord knows! So you will have two practices--the one you are buying,
and the other I will build up for you. You ought almost to pay me
fifteen per cent on my loan.'

"'So be it, but no more,' said I, with the firmness which means that a
man is determined not to concede another point.

"Daddy Gobseck's face relaxed; he looked pleased with me.

"'I shall pay the money over to your principal myself,' said he, 'so as
to establish a lien on the purchase and caution-money.'

"'Oh, anything you like in the way of guarantees.'

"'And besides that, you will give me bills for the amount made payable
to a third party (name left blank), fifteen bills of ten thousand francs
each.'

"'Well, so long as it is acknowledged in writing that this is a
double----'

"'No!' Gobseck broke in upon me. 'No! Why should I trust you any more
than you trust me?'

"I kept silence.

"'And furthermore,' he continued, with a sort of good humor, 'you will
give me your advice without charging fees as long as I live, will you
not?'

"'So be it; so long as there is no outlay.'

"'Precisely,' said he. "Ah, by the by, you will allow me to go to see
you?' (Plainly the old man found it not so easy to assume the air of
good-humor.)

"'I shall always be glad.'

"'Ah! yes, but it would be very difficult to arrange of a morning. You
will have your affairs to attend to, and I have mine.'

"'Then come in the evening.'

"'Oh, no!' he answered briskly, 'you ought to go into society and see
your clients, and I myself have my friends at my cafe.'

"'His friends!' thought I to myself.--'Very well,' said I, 'why not come
at dinner-time?'

"'That is the time,' said Gobseck, 'after 'Change, at five o'clock.
Good, you will see me Wednesdays and Saturdays. We will talk over
business like a pair of friends. Aha! I am gay sometimes. Just give me
the wing of a partridge and a glass of champagne, and we will have our
chat together. I know a great many things that can be told now at
this distance of time; I will teach you to know men, and what is
more--women!'

"'Oh! a partridge and a glass of champagne if you like.'

"'Don't do anything foolish, or