“‘I shall only pay when the fancy takes me,’ returned Maxime, and he rang for Suzon. ‘It was very rash of Claparon to buy up bills of mine without speaking to me beforehand. I am sorry for him, for he did so very well for such a long time as a man of straw for friends of mine. I always said that a man must really be weak in his intellect to work for men that stuff themselves with millions, and to serve them so faithfully for such low wages. And now here he gives me another proof of his stupidity! Yes, men deserve what they get. It is your own doing whether you get a crown on your forehead or a bullet through your head; whether you are a millionaire or a porter, justice is always done you. I cannot help it, my dear fellow; I myself am not a king, I stick to my principles. I have no pity for those that put me to expense or do not know their business as creditors.—Suzon! my tea! Do you see this gentleman?’ he continued when the man came in. ‘Well, you have allowed yourself to be taken in, poor old boy. This gentleman is a creditor; you ought to have known him by his boots. No friend nor foe of mine, nor those that are neither and want something of me, come to see me on foot.—My dear M. Cerizet, do you understand? You will not wipe your boots on my carpet again’ (looking as he spoke at the mud that whitened the enemy’s soles). ‘Convey my compliments and sympathy to Claparon, poor buffer, for I shall file this business under the letter Z.’
“All this with an easy good-humor fit to give a virtuous citizen the colic.
“‘You are wrong, Monsieur le Comte,’ retorted Cerizet, in a slightly peremptory tone. ‘We will be paid in full, and that in a way which you may not like. That is why I came to you first in a friendly spirit, as is right and fit between gentlemen—’
“‘Oh! so that is how you understand it?’ began Maxime, enraged by this last piece of presumption. There was something of Talleyrand’s wit in the insolent retort, if you have quite grasped the contrast between the two men and their costumes. Maxime scowled and looked full at the intruder; Cerizet not merely endured the glare of cold fury, but even returned it, with an icy, cat-like malignance and fixity of gaze.
“‘Very good, sir, go out—’
“‘Very well, good-day, Monsieur le Comte. We shall be quits before six months are out.’
“‘If you can steal the amount of your bill, which is legally due I own, I shall be indebted to you, sir,’ replied Maxime. ‘You will have taught me a new precaution to take. I am very much your servant.’
“‘Monsieur le Comte,’ said Cerizet, ‘it is I, on the contrary, who am yours.’
“Here was an explicit, forcible, confident declaration on either side. A couple of tigers confabulating, with the prey before them, and a fight impending, would have been no finer and no shrewder than this pair; the insolent fine gentleman as great a blackguard as the other in his soiled and mud-stained clothes.
“Which will you lay your money on?” asked Desroches, looking round at an audience, surprised to find how deeply it was interested.