is at stake."

"Good heavens, no! Dutocq can have the promise of a good place as soon
as you are named head of the division."

"Ah! I see what you are about, dear child," said Rabourdin; "but the
game you are playing is just as dishonorable as the real thing that is
going on around us. A lie is a lie, and an honest woman--"

"Let me use the weapons employed against us."

"Celestine, the more that man des Lupeaulx feels he is foolishly caught
in a trap, the more bitter he will be against me."

"What if I get him dismissed altogether?"

Rabourdin looked at his wife in amazement.

"I am thinking only of your advancement; it was high time, my poor
husband," continued Celestine. "But you are mistaking the dog for the
game," she added, after a pause. "In a few days des Lupeaulx will have
accomplished all that I want of him. While you are trying to speak to
the minister, and before you can even see him on business, I shall have
seen him and spoken with him. You are worn out in trying to bring that
plan of your brain to birth,--a plan which you have been hiding from me;
but you will find that in three months your wife has accomplished more
than you have done in six years. Come, tell me this fine scheme of
yours."

Rabourdin, continuing to shave, cautioned his wife not to say a word
about his work, and after assuring her that to confide a single idea
to des Lupeaulx would be to put the cat near the milk-jug, he began an
explanation of his labors.

"Why didn't you tell me this before, Rabourdin?" said Celestine, cutting
her husband short at his fifth sentence. "You might have saved yourself
a world of trouble. I can understand that a man should be blinded by an
idea for a moment, but to nurse it up for six or seven years, that's a
thing I cannot comprehend! You want to reduce the budget,--a vulgar
and commonplace idea! The budget ought, on the contrary, to reach two
hundred millions. Then, indeed, France would be great. If you want a new
system let it be one of loans, as Monsieur de Nucingen keeps saying. The
poorest of all treasuries is the one with a surplus that it never
uses; the mission of a minister of finance is to fling gold out of the
windows. It will come back to him through the cellars; and you, you
want to hoard it! The thing to do is to increase the offices and all
government employments, instead of reducing them! So far from lessening
the public debt, you ought to increase the creditors. If the Bourbons