“Then my share of the notes is equally important to them?”
“No doubt; but I couldn’t speak for you until I had consulted you.”
“What do they offer?”
“Hang it! my dear fellow, the same that I accepted. Knowing better than you the danger of their competition I sold out to them on very bad terms.”
“Well, but what are they, those terms?”
“I gave up my shares for fifteen thousand francs.”
“Come, come!” said Dutocq, shrugging his shoulders, “what you are after is to recover a loss (if you made it) by a commission on my share—and perhaps, after all, the whole thing is only a plot between you and la Peyrade—”
“At any rate, my good friend, you don’t mince your words; an infamous thought comes into your head and you state it with charming frankness. Luckily you shall presently hear me make the proposal to Theodose, and you are clever enough to know by his manner if there has been any connivance between us.”
“So be it!” said Dutocq. “I withdraw the insinuation; but I must say your employers are pirates; I call their proposal throttling people. I have not, like you, something to fall back upon.”
“Well, you poor fellow, this is how I reasoned: I said to myself, That good Dutocq is terribly pressed for the last payment on his practice; this will give him enough to pay it off at one stroke; events have proved that there are great uncertainties about our Theodose-and-Thuillier scheme; here’s money down, live money, and therefore it won’t be so bad a bargain after all.”