e extravagant and
shrewd. It is a matter of coquetting in these days over a hundred-sou
piece! Come, I will wager that Monsieur Montyon would not mince
matters--especially if he had transferable paper in circulation!"

"You know that?" said Vaudrey, turning pale.

"Ah! I know many others in like condition! Come, no false modesty! It is
a matter of business only! I tell you again, I have many other cases.
All this is in order to have the pleasure of offering you certificates
for attendance fees. I will open a credit for you of two hundred
thousand francs, if you wish. We will arrange matters afterwards."

"I will leave you these declarations of faith!" added Molina, showing
the prospectus of the gas undertaking. "Fear nothing! It is not more
untruthful than the others! It is unnecessary to show me out. _A la
revista!_"

He disappeared abruptly, Vaudrey hearing the floor of the hall creak
under this man's hippopotamus feet, and the unhappy Sulpice who had spun
so many, such glorious and grand dreams, dreams of liberty, freedom and
virtue, civic regeneration, reconstructed national morals and character,
the sacredness of the hearth and the education of the conscience; this
Vaudrey, bruised by life, overthrown by his vices, was there under the
soft light of his lamp, looking with staring eye, as a being who wishes
to die contemplates the edge of an abyss, looking at that printed paper
soliciting subscriptions, beating the big drum of the _promoter_ in
order to entrap the vast and ever-credulous horde.

His name! To put his name there! The name of Vaudrey that he had dreamed
of reading at the foot of so many noble, eternal and reforming laws, to
inscribe it upon that paper beneath so many cunning names, jugglers,
habitual drainers of the public cash-box. To fall to that! To do that!

To lend himself?

To sell himself!

And why not sell himself? Who would discharge this bill of exchange? The
Gochard paper! The debt of the past! The price of the nights spent with
Marianne! The hundred thousand francs for that girl's kisses!

Sulpice felt in the weakness increased by a growing fever, that his
self-possession was leaving him. All his ideas clashed confusedly. Amid
the chaos, only one clear idea remained; a hundred and sixty thousand
francs had to be found. Where were they to be found? Yes, where? Through
Molina, who offered him two hundred thousand! This open credit seemed to
him like an opened-up placer in which he ha