“It can’t be done that way, papa Lantimeche,” Cerizet was saying to a tall old man, seeming to be about seventy years of age, who was standing before him with a red woollen cap in his hand, exhibiting a bald head, and a breast covered with white hairs visible through his miserable linen jacket.  “Tell me exactly what you want to undertake.  One hundred francs, even on condition of getting back one hundred and twenty, can’t be let loose that way, like a dog in a church—­”

The five other applicants, among whom were two women, both with infants, one knitting, the other suckling her child, burst out laughing.

When Cerizet saw Dutocq, he rose respectfully and went rather hastily to meet him, adding to his client:—­

“Take time to reflect; for, don’t you see? it makes me doubtful to have such a sum as that, one hundred francs! asked for by an old journeyman locksmith!”

“But I tell you it concerns an invention,” cried the old workman.

“An invention and one hundred francs!” said Dutocq.  “You don’t know the laws; you must take out a patent, and that costs two thousand francs, and you want influence.”

“All that is true,” said Cerizet, who, however, reckoned a good deal on such chances.  “Come to-morrow morning, papa Lantimeche, at six o’clock, and we’ll talk it over; you can’t talk inventions in public.”

Cerizet then turned to Dutocq whose first words were:—­

“If the thing turns out well, half profits!”

“Why did you get up at this time in the morning to come here and say that to me?” demanded the distrustful Cerizet, already displeased with the mention of “half profits.”  “You could have seen me as usual at the office.”

And he looked askance at Dutocq; the latter, while telling him his errand and speaking of Claparon and the necessity of pushing forward in the Theodose affair, seemed confused.

“All the same you could have seen me this morning at the office,” repeated Cerizet, conducting his visitor to the door.

“There’s a man,” thought he, as he returned to his seat, “who seems to me to have breathed on his lantern so that I may not see clear.  Well, well, I’ll give up that place of copying clerk.  Ha! your turn, little mother!” he cried; “you invent children!  That’s amusing enough, though the trick is well known.”

It is all the more useless to relate the conversation which took place between the three confederates at the “Cheval Rouge,” because the arrangements there concluded were the basis of certain confidences made, as we shall see, by Theodose to Mademoiselle Thuillier; but it is necessary to remark that the cleverness displayed by la Peyrade seemed almost alarming to Cerizet and Dutocq.  After this conference, the banker of the poor, finding himself in company with such powerful players, had it in mind to make sure of his own stake at the first chance.  To win the game at any price over the heads of the ablest gamblers, by cheating if necessary, is the inspiration of a special sort of vanity peculiar to friends of the green cloth.  Hence came the terrible blow which la Peyrade was about to receive.