“My girl owed God and the devil——”
“Vat, you haf a girl, a mistress!” cried Nucingen, looking at Contenson with admiration not unmixed with envy.
“I am but sixty-six,” replied Contenson, as a man whom vice has kept young as a bad example.
“And vat do she do?”
“She helps me,” said Contenson. “When a man is a thief, and an honest woman loves him, either she becomes a thief or he becomes an honest man. I have always been a spy.”
“And you vant money—alvays?” asked Nucingen.
“Always,” said Contenson, with a smile. “It is part of my business to want money, as it is yours to make it; we shall easily come to an understanding. You find me a little, and I will undertake to spend it. You shall be the well, and I the bucket.”
“Vould you like to haf one note for fife hundert franc?”
“What a question! But what a fool I am!—You do not offer it out of a disinterested desire to repair the slights of Fortune?”
“Not at all. I gif it besides the one tousand-franc note vat you pleed me off. Dat makes fifteen hundert franc vat I gif you.”