“’But d’Aiglemont, who was here at breakfast with us, has a million in Nucingen’s bank.’

“’Look here; I do not know whether there will be enough of these shares to cover it; and besides, I am not his friend, I cannot betray Nucingen’s confidence.  You must not speak to d’Aiglemont.  If you say a word, you must answer to me for the consequences.’

“Godefroid stood stock still for ten minutes.

“‘Do you accept?  Yes or no!’ said the inexorable Rastignac.

“Godefroid took up the pen, wrote at Rastignac’s dictation, and signed his name.

“‘My poor cousin!’ he cried.

“‘Each for himself,’ said Rastignac.  ‘And there is one more settled!’ he added to himself as he left Beaudenord.

“While Rastignac was manoeuvring thus in Paris, imagine the state of things on the Bourse.  A friend of mine, a provincial, a stupid creature, once asked me as we came past the Bourse between four and five in the afternoon what all that crowd of chatterers was doing, what they could possibly find to say to each other, and why they were wandering to and fro when business in public securities was over for the day.  ‘My friend,’ said I, ’they have made their meal, and now they are digesting it; while they digest it, they gossip about their neighbors, or there would be no commercial security in Paris.  Concerns are floated here, such and such a man—­Palma, for instance, who is something the same here as Sinard at the Academie Royale des Sciences —­Palma says, “let the speculation be made!” and the speculation is made.’”

“What a man that Hebrew is,” put in Blondet; “he has not had a university education, but a universal education.  And universal does not in his case mean superficial; whatever he knows, he knows to the bottom.  He has a genius, an intuitive faculty for business.  He is the oracle of all the lynxes that rule the Paris market; they will not touch an investment until Palma has looked into it.  He looks solemn, he listens, ponders, and reflects; his interlocutor thinks that after this consideration he has come round his man, till Palma says, ’This will not do for me.’—­The most extraordinary thing about Palma, to my mind, is the fact that he and Werbrust were partners for ten years, and there was never the shadow of a disagreement between them.”

“That is the way with the very strong or the very weak; any two between the extremes fall out and lose no time in making enemies of each other,” said Couture.

“Nucingen, you see, had neatly and skilfully put a little bombshell under the colonnades of the Bourse, and towards four o’clock in the afternoon it exploded.—­’Here is something serious; have you heard the news?’ asked du Tillet, drawing Werbrust into a corner.  ’Here is Nucingen gone off to Brussels, and his wife petitioning for a separation of her estate.’

“‘Are you and he in it together for a liquidation?’ asked Werbrust, smiling.

“‘No foolery, Werbrust,’ said du Tillet.  ’You know the holders of his paper.  Now, look here.  There is business in it.  Shares in this new concern of ours have gone up twenty per cent already; they will go up to five-and-twenty by the end of the quarter; you know why.  They are going to pay a splendid dividend.’