one-and-twenty is lost," said Couture.

"Unless he is miserly, or very much above the ordinary level," added
Blondet.

"Well, Godefroid sojourned in the four capitals of Italy," continued
Bixiou. "He lived in England and Germany, he spent some little time
at St. Petersburg, he ran over Holland but he parted company with the
aforesaid thirty thousand francs by living as if he had thirty thousand
a year. Everywhere he found the same _supreme de volaille_, the same
aspics, and French wines; he heard French spoken wherever he went--in
short, he never got away from Paris. He ought, of course, to have tried
to deprave his disposition, to fence himself in triple brass, to get rid
of his illusions, to learn to hear anything said without a blush, and
to master the inmost secrets of the Powers.--Pooh! with a good deal of
trouble he equipped himself with four languages--that is to say, he laid
in a stock of four words for one idea. Then he came back, and certain
tedious dowagers, styled 'conquests' abroad, were left disconsolate.
Godefroid came back, shy, scarcely formed, a good fellow with a
confiding disposition, incapable of saying ill of any one who honored
him with an admittance to his house, too staunch to be a diplomatist,
altogether he was what we call a thoroughly good fellow."

"To cut it short, a brat with eighteen thousand livres per annum to drop
over the first investment that turns up," said Couture.

"That confounded Couture has such a habit of anticipating dividends,
that he is anticipating the end of my tale. Where was I? Oh! Beaudenord
came back. When he took up his abode on the Quai Malaquais, it came
to pass that a thousand francs over and above his needs was altogether
insufficient to keep up his share of a box at the Italiens and the Opera
properly. When he lost twenty-five or thirty louis at play at one swoop,
naturally he paid; when he won, he spent the money; so should we if we
were fools enough to be drawn into a bet. Beaudenord, feeling pinched
with his eighteen thousand francs, saw the necessity of creating what we
to-day call a balance in hand. It was a great notion of his 'not to get
too deep.' He took counsel of his sometime guardian. 'The funds are now
at par, my dear boy,' quoth d'Aiglemont; 'sell out. I have sold mine and
my wife's. Nucingen has all my capital, and is giving me six per cent;
do likewise, you will have one per cent the more upon your capital, and
with that you will be quite com