r luck if she had seen
us.

Vautrin
You mean _you_ would have been down in your luck; you take pretty good
care not to be caught again, don't you? I suppose then that you enjoy
peace of mind in this house?

Joseph
That I do, for honesty I find to be the best policy.

Vautrin
And do you quite approve of honesty?

Joseph
Oh, yes, so long as the place and the wages suit me.

Vautrin
I see you are doing well, my boy. You take little and often, you save,
you even have the honesty to lend a trifle at interest. That's all
right, but you cannot imagine what pleasure it gives me to see one of
my old acquaintances filling an honorable position. You have succeeded
in doing so; your faults are but negative and therefore half virtues.
I myself once had vices; I regret them as things of the past; I have
nothing but dangers and struggles to interest me. Mine is the life of
an Indian hemmed in by my enemies, and I am fighting in defence of my
own scalp.

Joseph
And what of mine?

Vautrin
Yours? Ah! you are right to ask that. Well, whatever happens to me,
you have the word of Jacques Collin that he will never compromise you.
But you must obey me in everything!

Joseph
In everything? But--

Vautrin
There are no buts with me. If there is any dark business to be done I
have my "trusties" and old allies. Have you been long in this place?

Joseph
The duchess took me for her footman when she went with the court to
Ghent, last year and I am trusted by both the ladies of the house.

Vautrin
That's the ticket! I need a few points with regard to these
Montsorels. What do you know about them?

Joseph
Nothing.

Vautrin (aside)
He is getting a little too honest. Does he think he knows nothing
about them? Well, you cannot talk for five minutes with a man without
drawing something out of him. (Aloud) Whose room is this?

Joseph
The salon of her grace the duchess, and these are her apartments;
those of the duke are on the floor above. The suite of the marquis,
their only son, is below, and looks on the court.

Vautrin
I asked you for impressions of all the keys of the duke's study. Where
are they?

Joseph (hesitatingly)
Here they are.

Vautrin
Every time I purpose coming here you will find a cross in chalk on the
garden gate; every night you must examine the place. Virtue reigns
here, and the hinges of that gate are very rusty; but a Louis XVIII
can never be a Louis XV! Good-bye--I'll come back to-morrow night.
(A