ething that went, as Rastignac meant that it should, to
the quick of Malvina's intelligence. She thought over the counsel again
next day, and vainly asked herself why it had been given."

Couture broke in. "In all these tops that you have set spinning, I see
nothing at all like the beginnings of Rastignac's fortune," said he.
"You apparently take us for Matifats multiplied by half-a-dozen bottles
of champagne."

"We are just coming to it," returned Bixiou. "You have followed the
course of all the rivulets which make up that forty thousand livres a
year which so many people envy. By this time Rastignac held the threads
of all these lives in his hand."

"Desroches, the Matifats, Beaudenord, the d'Aldriggers, d'Aiglemont?"

"Yes, and a hundred others," assented Bixiou.

"Oh, come now, how?" cried Finot. "I know a few things, but I cannot see
a glimpse of an answer to this riddle."

"Blondet has roughly given you the account of Nucingen's first two
suspensions of payment; now for the third, with full details.--After
the peace of 1815, Nucingen grasped an idea which some of us only fully
understood later, to wit, that capital is a power only when you are very
much richer than other people. In his own mind, he was jealous of the
Rothschilds. He had five millions of francs, he wanted ten. He knew a
way to make thirty millions with ten, while with five he could only
make fifteen. So he made up his mind to operate a third suspension of
payment. About that time, the great man hit on the idea of indemnifying
his creditors with paper of purely fictitious value and keeping their
coin. On the market, a great idea of this sort is not expressed in
precisely this cut-and-dried way. Such an arrangement consists in giving
a lot of grown-up children a small pie in exchange for a gold piece;
and, like children of a smaller growth, they prefer the pie to the gold
piece, not suspecting that they might have a couple of hundred pies for
it."

"What is this all about, Bixiou?" cried Couture. "Nothing more _bona
fide_. Not a week passes but pies are offered to the public for a louis.
But who compels the public to take them? Are they not perfectly free to
make inquiries?"

"You would rather have it made compulsory to take up shares, would you?"
asked Blondet.

"No," said Finot. "Where would the talent come in?"

"Very good for Finot."

"Who put him up to it?" asked Couture.

"The fact was," continued Bixiou, "that Nucingen had twice