"In a word, then, I am anxious to become a landed proprietor. And, if
not inconvenient to you, I should like--that is I should wish--to have
my funds now in your hands; and I came to say so."

"Ah, ah!"

"That does not offend you, I hope?"

"Why should I be offended?"

"Because you might think--"

"I might think--?"

"That I am the echo of certain reports--"

"What reports?"

"Oh, nothing. Mere folly."

"But, tell me--"

"Oh, there can be no certainty in the gossip about you!"

"What gossip?"

"Oh, it is false from beginning to end. But there are chatterers who say
that you are mixed up in some unpleasant transactions. Idle gossip, I am
quite certain. It is just the same as the report that you and I
speculated on the Exchange together. These reports soon died away. For I
will always say that--"

"So you suppose that your money is not safe with me?"

"Oh, no--no! But, at this moment, I should like to have it in my own
hands."

"Wait a moment." M. Ferrand shut the drawer of his bureau, and rose.

"Where are you going, my dear cashkeeper?"

"To fetch what will convince you of the truth of the reports as to the
embarrassment of my affairs," said the notary, ironically; and, opening
the door of a small private staircase, which enabled him to go into the
pavilion at the back without passing through the office, he disappeared.
He had scarce left the room, when the head clerk rapped again.

"Come in," said Charles Robert.

"Is not M. Ferrand here?"

"No, my worthy pounce and parchment" (another joke of M. Robert).

"There is a lady with a veil on, who wishes to see my employer this
moment on a very urgent affair."

"Worthy quill-driver, the excellent employer will be here in a moment,
and I will inform him. Is the lady handsome?"

"One must be very keen-sighted to discover; for she has on a black veil,
so thick that it is impossible to see her face."

"Really, really, I will make her show her face as I go out. I'll tell
the governor as soon as he returns."

The clerk left the room.

"Where the devil has the attorney at law vanished?" said M. Charles
Robert. "To examine the state of his finances, no doubt. If these
reports are groundless, so much the better. And, when all is said and
done, they can but be false reports. Men of Jacques Ferrand's honesty
always have so many people jealous of them! Still, at the same time, I
should just as well like to have my own cash. I will certainly buy th