andre Crottat will fit
us like a glove for a son-in-law, and he will succeed Roguin; but do
you suppose he will be satisfied with a hundred thousand francs
_dot_?--supposing that we gave our whole property outside of the
business to establish our daughter, and I am willing; I would gladly
live on dry bread the rest of my days to see her happy as a queen, the
wife of a notary of Paris, as you say. Well, then, a hundred thousand
francs, or even eight thousand francs a year, is nothing at all towards
buying Roguin's practice. Little Xandrot, as we call him, thinks,
like all the rest of the world, that we are richer than we are. If his
father, that big farmer who is as close as a snail, won't sell a hundred
thousand francs worth of land Xandrot can't be a notary, for Roguin's
practice is worth four or five hundred thousand. If Crottat does not
pay half down, how could he negotiate the affair? Cesarine must have two
hundred thousand francs _dot_; and I mean that you and I shall retire
solid bourgeois of Paris, with fifteen thousand francs a year. Hein! If
I could make you see that as plain as day, wouldn't it shut your mouth?"

"Oh, if you've got the mines of Peru--"

"Yes, I have, my lamb. Yes," he said, taking his wife by the waist and
striking her with little taps, under an emotion of joy which lighted up
his features, "I did not wish to tell you of this matter till it was all
cooked; but to-morrow it will be done,--that is, perhaps it will. Here
it is then: Roguin has proposed a speculation to me, so safe that he has
gone into it with Ragon, with your uncle Pillerault, and two other of
his clients. We are to buy property near the Madeleine, which, according
to Roguin's calculations, we shall get for a quarter of the value which
it will bring three years from now, at which time, the present leases
having expired, we shall manage it for ourselves. We have all six taken
certain shares. I furnish three hundred thousand francs,--that is,
three-eighths of the whole. If any one of us wants money, Roguin will
get it for him by hypothecating his share. To hold the gridiron and know
how the fish are fried, I have chosen to be nominally proprietor of one
half, which is, however, to be the common property of Pillerault and
the worthy Ragon and myself. Roguin will be, under the name of Monsieur
Charles Claparon, co-proprietor with me, and will give a reversionary
deed to his associates, as I shall to mine. The deeds of purchase are