en of genius than either Justice or Fortune,
because Jove has not chosen to bandage her eyes. Hence, lightly deceived
by the display of impostors, and attracted by their frippery and
trumpets, she spends the time in seeing them and the money in paying
them which she ought to devote to seeking out men of merit in the nooks
where they hide.

It will now be necessary to explain how Monsieur le Baron Hulot had
contrived to count up his expenditure on Hortense's wedding portion,
and at the same time to defray the frightful cost of the charming rooms
where Madame Marneffe was to make her home. His financial scheme bore
that stamp of talent which leads prodigals and men in love into the
quagmires where so many disasters await them. Nothing can demonstrate
more completely the strange capacity communicated by vice, to which
we owe the strokes of skill which ambitious or voluptuous men can
occasionally achieve--or, in short, any of the Devil's pupils.

On the day before, old Johann Fischer, unable to pay thirty thousand
francs drawn for on him by his nephew, had found himself under the
necessity of stopping payment unless the Baron could remit the sum.

This ancient worthy, with the white hairs of seventy years, had such
blind confidence in Hulot--who, to the old Bonapartist, was an emanation
from the Napoleonic sun--that he was calmly pacing his anteroom with
the bank clerk, in the little ground-floor apartment that he rented
for eight hundred francs a year as the headquarters of his extensive
dealings in corn and forage.

"Marguerite is gone to fetch the money from close by," said he.

The official, in his gray uniform braided with silver, was so convinced
of the old Alsatian's honesty, that he was prepared to leave the thirty
thousand francs' worth of bills in his hands; but the old man would not
let him go, observing that the clock had not yet struck eight. A cab
drew up, the old man rushed into the street, and held out his hand
to the Baron with sublime confidence--Hulot handed him out thirty
thousand-franc notes.

"Go on three doors further, and I will tell you why," said Fischer.

"Here, young man," he said, returning to count out the money to the bank
emissary, whom he then saw to the door.

When the clerk was out of sight, Fischer called back the cab containing
his august nephew, Napoleon's right hand, and said, as he led him into
the house:

"You do not want them to know at the Bank of France that you paid me