arlos Herrera, who wanted to save the honor of his gown, as well as
Lucien's, had worked the spell by a forgery not dangerous for him, but
now so frequently practised that Justice is beginning to object. There
is, it is said, a Bourse for falsified bills near the Palais Royal,
where you may get a forged signature for three francs.

Before entering on the question of the hundred thousand crowns that were
to keep the door of the bedroom, Carlos determined first to extract a
hundred thousand more from M. de Nucingen.

And this was the way: By his orders Asie got herself up for the Baron's
benefit as an old woman fully informed as to the unknown beauty's
affairs.

Hitherto, novelists of manners have placed on the stage a great many
usurers; but the female money-lender has been overlooked, the Madame la
Ressource of the present day--a very singular figure, euphemistically
spoken of as a "ward-robe purchaser"; a part that the ferocious Asie
could play, for she had two old-clothes shops managed by women she could
trust--one in the Temple, and the other in the Rue Neuve-Saint-Marc.

"You must get into the skin of Madame de Saint-Esteve," said he.

Herrera wished to see Asie dressed.

The go-between arrived in a dress of flowered damask, made of the
curtains of some dismantled boudoir, and one of those shawls of Indian
design--out of date, worn, and valueless, which end their career on the
backs of these women. She had a collar of magnificent lace, though torn,
and a terrible bonnet; but her shoes were of fine kid, in which the
flesh of her fat feet made a roll of black-lace stocking.

"And my waist buckle!" she exclaimed, displaying a piece of
suspicious-looking finery, prominent on her cook's stomach, "There's
style for you! and my front!--Oh, Ma'me Nourrisson has turned me out
quite spiff!"

"Be as sweet as honey at first," said Carlos; "be almost timid, as
suspicious as a cat; and, above all, make the Baron ashamed of having
employed the police, without betraying that you quake before the
constable. Finally, make your customer understand in more or less plain
terms that you defy all the police in the world to discover his jewel.
Take care to destroy your traces.

"When the Baron gives you a right to tap him on the stomach, and call
him a pot-bellied old rip, you may be as insolent as you please, and
make him trot like a footman."

Nucingen--threatened by Asie with never seeing her again if he attempted
the sm