“Halloo!” said a man; “that’s the son. What cheek!”
And farther on, in front of the grocer’s.
“I tell you what,” said a woman in the midst of a group, “they still have more than we have.”
Then, for the first time, he understood with what crushing weight his father’s crime would weigh upon his whole life; and, whilst going up the Rue Turenne:
“It’s all over,” he thought: “I can never get over it.” And he was thinking of changing his name, of emigrating to America, and hiding himself in the deserts of the Far West, when, a little farther on, he noticed a group of some thirty persons in front of a newspaper-stand. The vender, a fat little man with a red face and an impudent look, was crying in a hoarse voice,
“Here are the morning papers! The last editions! All about the robbery of twelve millions by a poor cashier. Buy the morning papers!”
And, to stimulate the sale of his wares, he added all sorts of jokes of his own invention, saying that the thief belonged to the neighborhood; that it was quite flattering, etc.
The crowd laughed; and he went on,
“The cashier Favoral’s robbery! twelve millions! Buy the paper, and see how it’s done.”
And so the scandal was public, irreparable. Maxence was listening a few steps off. He felt like going; but an imperative feeling, stronger than his will, made him anxious to see what the papers said.