good-bye, and don't owe me a grudge!" [He goes out through the clerks'
office.] "Adieu, gentlemen; didn't I tell you yesterday that a man who
has nothing but virtues and talents will always be poor, even though he
has a pretty wife?"

Henry. "You are so rich, you!"

Bixiou. "Not bad, my Cincinnatus! But you'll give me that dinner at the
Rocher de Cancale."

Poiret. "It is absolutely impossible for me to understand Monsieur
Bixiou."

Phellion [with an elegaic air]. "Monsieur Rabourdin so seldom reads the
newspapers that it might perhaps be serviceable to deprive ourselves
momentarily by taking them in to him." [Fleury hands over his paper,
Vimeux the office sheet, and Phellion departs with them.]

At that moment des Lupeaulx, coming leisurely downstairs to breakfast
with the minister, was asking himself whether, before playing a trump
card for the husband, it might not be prudent to probe the wife's heart
and make sure of a reward for his devotion. He was feeling about for
the small amount of heart that he possessed, when, at a turn of the
staircase, he encountered his lawyer, who said to him, smiling, "Just a
word, Monseigneur," in the tone of familiarity assumed by men who know
they are indispensable.

"What is it, my dear Desroches?" exclaimed the politician. "Has anything
happened?"

"I have come to tell you that all your notes and debts have been brought
up by Gobseck and Gigonnet, under the name of a certain Samanon."

"Men whom I helped to make their millions!"

"Listen," whispered the lawyer. "Gigonnet (really named Bidault) is
the uncle of Saillard, your cashier; and Saillard is father-in-law to a
certain Baudoyer, who thinks he has a right to the vacant place in your
ministry. Don't you think I have done right to come and tell you?"

"Thank you," said des Lupeaulx, nodding to the lawyer with a shrewd
look.

"One stroke of your pen will buy them off," said Desroches, leaving him.

"What an immense sacrifice!" muttered des Lupeaulx. "It would be
impossible to explain it to a woman," thought he. "Is Celestine worth
more than the clearing off of my debts?--that is the question. I'll go
and see her this morning."

So the beautiful Madame Rabourdin was to be, within an hour, the arbiter
of her husband's fate, and no power on earth could warn her of the
importance of her replies, or give her the least hint to guard her
conduct and compose her voice. Moreover, in addition to her mischances,
she belie