“There’s nothing.”

“Nothing?  I tell you you lie, and I shall find it out.”

“Do let me alone!”

“I’ll turn the faucet of that fountain of venom, Goupil—­whom you’re afraid of—­and we’ll see who gets the best of it then.”

“Just as you choose.”

“I know very well it will be as I choose! and what I choose first and foremost is that no harm shall come to Desire.  If anything happens to him, mark you, I’ll do something that may send me to the scaffold—­and you, you haven’t any feeling about him—­”

A quarrel thus begun between Minoret and his wife was sure not to end without a long and angry strife.  So at the moment of his self-satisfaction the foolish robber found his inward struggle against himself and against Ursula revived by his own fault, and complicated with a new and terrible adversary.  The next day, when he left the house early to find Goupil and try to appease him with additional money, the walls were already placarded with the words:  “Minoret is a thief.”  All those whom he met commiserated him and asked him who was the author of the anonymous placard.  Fortunately for him, everybody made allowance for his equivocal replies by reflecting on his utter stupidity; fools get more advantage from their weakness than able men from their strength.  The world looks on at a great man battling against fate, and does not help him, but it supplies the capital of a grocer who may fail and lose all.  Why?  Because men like to feel superior in protecting an incapable, and are displeased at not feeling themselves the equal of a man of genius.  A clever man would have been lost in public estimation had he stammered, as Minoret did, evasive and foolish answers with a frightened air.  Zelie sent her servants to efface the vindictive words wherever they were found; but the effect of them on Minoret’s conscience still remained.

The result of his interview with his assailant was soon apparent.  Though Goupil had concluded his bargain with the sheriff the night before, he now impudently refused to fulfil it.

“My dear Lecoeur,” he said, “I am unexpectedly enabled to buy up Monsieur Dionis’s practice; I am therefore in a position to help you to sell to others.  Tear up the agreement; it’s only the loss of two stamps,—­here are seventy centimes.”

Lecoeur was too much afraid of Goupil to complain.  All Nemours knew before night that Minoret had given Dionis security to enable Goupil to buy his practice.  The latter wrote to Savinien denying his charges against Minoret, and telling the young nobleman that in his new position he was forbidden by the rules of the supreme court, and also by his respect for law, to fight a duel.  But he warned Savinien to treat him well in future; assuring him he was a capital boxer, and would break his leg at the first offence.