“Oh, a cabbage-leaf that calls itself the ‘Echo de la Bievre’!” replied Cerizet with great scorn; “a paper which an old hack of a journalist on his last legs managed to set up in the Mouffetard quarter by the help of a lot of tanners—that, you know, is the industry of the quarter. From a political and literary point of view the affair is nothing at all, but Thuillier has been made to think it a masterly stroke.”
“Well, for local service to the election the instrument isn’t so bad,” remarked du Portail. “La Peyrade has talent, activity, and much resource of mind; he may make something out of that ‘Echo.’ Under what political banner will Thuillier present himself?”
“Thuillier,” replied the beggars’ banker, “is an oyster; he hasn’t any opinions. Until the publication of his pamphlet he was, like all those bourgeois, a rabid conservative; but since the seizure he has gone over to the Opposition. His first stage will probably be the Left-centre; but if the election wind should blow from another quarter, he’ll go straight before it to the extreme left. Self-interest, for those bourgeois, that’s the measure of their convictions.”
“Dear, dear!” said du Portail, “this new combination of la Peyrade’s may assume the importance of a political danger from the point of view of my opinions, which are extremely conservative and governmental.” Then, after a moment’s reflection, he added, “I think you did newspaper work once upon a time; I remember ‘the courageous Cerizet.’”
“Yes,” replied the usurer, “I even managed one with la Peyrade,—an evening paper; and a pretty piece of work we did, for which we were finely recompensed.”
“Well,” said du Portail, “why don’t you do it again,—journalism, I mean,—with la Peyrade.”
Cerizet looked at du Portail in amazement.
“Ah ca!” he cried, “are you the devil, monsieur? Can nothing ever be hidden from you?”
“Yes,” said du Portail, “I know a good many things. But what has been settled between you and la Peyrade?”
“Well, remembering my experience in the business, and not knowing whom else to get, he offered to make me manager of the paper.”