ple price for dat
furniture, if I shall buy de lease----"

"That can be managed," said his friend. "If you go there this morning,
you will find one of Falleix's partners there with the tradespeople,
who want to establish a first claim; but la Val-Noble has their accounts
made out to Falleix."

The Baron sent off one of his clerks forthwith to his lawyer. Jacques
Falleix had spoken to him about this house, which was worth sixty
thousand francs at most, and he wished to be put in possession of it at
once, so as to avail himself of the privileges of the householder.

The cashier, honest man, came to inquire whether his master had lost
anything by Falleix's bankruptcy.

"On de contrar' mein goot Volfgang, I stant to vin ein hundert tousant
francs."

"How vas dat?"

"Vell, I shall hafe de little house vat dat poor Teufel Falleix should
furnish for his mis'ess this year. I shall hafe all dat for fifty
tousant franc to de creditors; and my notary, Maitre Cardot, shall hafe
my orders to buy de house, for de lan'lord vant de money--I knew dat,
but I hat lost mein head. Ver' soon my difine Esther shall life in a
little palace.... I hafe been dere mit Falleix--it is close to here.--It
shall fit me like a glofe."

Falleix's failure required the Baron's presence at the Bourse; but he
could not bear to leave his house in the Rue Saint-Lazare without going
to the Rue Taitbout; he was already miserable at having been away from
Esther for so many hours. He would have liked to keep her at his elbow.
The profits he hoped to make out of his stockbrokers' plunder made the
former loss of four hundred thousand francs quite easy to endure.

Delighted to announce to his "anchel" that she was to move from the Rue
Taitbout to the Rue Saint-Georges, where she was to have "ein little
palace" where her memories would no longer rise up in antagonism to
their happiness, the pavement felt elastic under his feet; he walked
like a young man in a young man's dream. As he turned the corner of the
Rue des Trois Freres, in the middle of his dream, and of the road, the
Baron beheld Europe coming towards him, looking very much upset.

"Vere shall you go?" he asked.

"Well, monsieur, I was on my way to you. You were quite right yesterday.
I see now that poor madame had better have gone to prison for a few
days. But how should women understand money matters? When madame's
creditors heard that she had come home, they all came down upon us like
birds