eads,
with mahogany-colored faces and bleared eyes, damaged noses, and hideous
mouths, Louchard now stepped forth, more decently dressed than his men,
but keeping his hat on, his expression at once smooth-faced and smiling.

"Mademoiselle, I arrest you!" said he to Esther. "As for you, my girl,"
he added to Europe, "any resistance will be punished, and perfectly
useless."

The noise of muskets, let down with a thud of their stocks on the floor
of the dining-room, showing that the invaders had soldiers to bake them,
gave emphasis to this speech.

"And what am I arrested for?" said Esther.

"What about our little debts?" said Louchard.

"To be sure," cried Esther; "give me leave to dress."

"But, unfortunately, mademoiselle, I am obliged to make sure that you
have no way of getting out of your room," said Louchard.

All this passed so quickly that the Baron had not yet had time to
intervene.

"Well, and am I still a foul dealer in human flesh, Baron de Nucingen?"
cried the hideous Asie, forcing her way past the sheriff's officers to
the couch, where she pretended to have just discovered the banker.

"Contemptible wretch!" exclaimed Nucingen, drawing himself up in
financial majesty.

He placed himself between Esther and Louchard, who took off his hat as
Contenson cried out, "Monsieur le Baron de Nucingen."

At a signal from Louchard the bailiffs vanished from the room,
respectfully taking their hats off. Contenson alone was left.

"Do you propose to pay, Monsieur le Baron?" asked he, hat in hand.

"I shall pay," said the banker; "but I must know vat dis is all about."

"Three hundred and twelve thousand francs and some centimes, costs paid;
but the charges for the arrest not included."

"Three hundred thousand francs," cried the Baron; "dat is a fery
'xpensive vaking for a man vat has passed the night on a sofa," he added
in Europe's ear.

"Is that man really the Baron de Nucingen?" asked Europe to Louchard,
giving weight to the doubt by a gesture which Mademoiselle Dupont, the
low comedy servant of the Francais, might have envied.

"Yes, mademoiselle," said Louchard.

"Yes," replied Contenson.

"I shall be answerable," said the Baron, piqued in his honor by Europe's
doubt. "You shall 'llow me to say ein vort to her."

Esther and her elderly lover retired to the bedroom, Louchard finding it
necessary to apply his ear to the keyhole.

"I lofe you more as my life, Esther; but vy gife to your credito