livres, and I wish I could lend you the amount you want. But
you must write to your father, persuade him, reason with him; do not
lose so good a chance. He must make a little sacrifice, and he will be
grateful to me later."

In accordance with their son's request, the young man's parents
despatched a sum of four thousand livres, requesting Derues to lose no
time in concluding the purchase.

Three weeks later, the father, very uneasy, arrived in Paris. He came
to inquire about his son, having heard nothing from him. Derues received
him with the utmost astonishment, appearing convinced that the young man
had returned home. One day, he said, the youth informed him that he had
heard from his father, who had given up all idea of establishing him in
Paris, having arranged an advantageous marriage for him near home; and
he had taken his twelve thousand livres, for which Derues produced a
receipt, and started on his return journey.

One evening, when nearly dark, Derues had gone out with his guest, who
complained of headache and internal pains. Where did they go? No one
knew; but Denies only returned at daybreak, alone, weary and exhausted,
and the young man was never again heard of.

One of his apprentices was the constant object of reproof. The boy was
accused of negligence, wasting his time, of spending three hours over
a task which might have been done in less than one. When Derues had
convinced the father, a Parisian bourgeois, that his son was a bad boy
and a good-for-nothing, he came to this man one day in a state of wild
excitement.

"Your son," he said, "ran away yesterday with six hundred livres, with
which I had to meet a bill to-day. He knew where I kept this money, and
has taken it."

He threatened to go before a magistrate and denounce the thief, and was
only appeased by being paid the sum he claimed to have lost. But he
had gone out with the lad the evening before, and returned alone in the
early hours of the morning.

However, the veil which concealed the truth was becoming more and
more transparent every day. Three bankruptcies had diminished the
consideration he enjoyed, and people began to listen to complaints and
accusations which till now had been considered mere inventions designed
to injure him. Another attempt at trickery made him feel it desirable to
leave the neighbourhood.

He had rented a house close to his own, the shop of which had been
tenanted for seven or eight years by a wine merchan