ancs.--You will say, 'But you
may die'"--the banker signified his assent--"Here, then, is a policy of
insurance for a hundred and fifty thousand francs, which I will deposit
with you till you have drawn up the eighty thousand francs," said Hulot,
producing the document form his pocket.

"But if you should lose your place?" said the millionaire Baron,
laughing.

The other Baron--not a millionaire--looked grave.

"Be quite easy; I only raised the question to show you that I was not
devoid of merit in handing you the sum. Are you so short of cash? for
the Bank will take your signature."

"My daughter is to be married," said Baron Hulot, "and I have no
fortune--like every one else who remains in office in these thankless
times, when five hundred ordinary men seated on benches will never
reward the men who devote themselves to the service as handsomely as the
Emperor did."

"Well, well; but you had Josepha on your hands!" replied Nucingen, "and
that accounts for everything. Between ourselves, the Duc d'Herouville
has done you a very good turn by removing that leech from sucking your
purse dry. 'I have known what that is, and can pity your case,'" he
quoted. "Take a friend's advice: Shut up shop, or you will be done for."

This dirty business was carried out in the name of one Vauvinet, a small
money-lender; one of those jobbers who stand forward to screen great
banking houses, like the little fish that is said to attend the shark.
This stock-jobber's apprentice was so anxious to gain the patronage of
Monsieur le Baron Hulot, that he promised the great man to negotiate
bills of exchange for thirty thousand francs at eighty days, and pledged
himself to renew them four times, and never pass them out of his hands.

Fischer's successor was to pay forty thousand francs for the house
and the business, with the promise that he should supply forage to a
department close to Paris.

This was the desperate maze of affairs into which a man who had
hitherto been absolutely honest was led by his passions--one of the
best administrative officials under Napoleon--peculation to pay the
money-lenders, and borrowing of the money-lenders to gratify his
passions and provide for his daughter. All the efforts of this elaborate
prodigality were directed at making a display before Madame Marneffe,
and to playing Jupiter to this middle-class Danae. A man could not
expend more activity, intelligence, and presence of mind in the honest
acquisi