“Have you brought the fifteen thousand francs?”

“No, but I have them at home.”

“Why not have them in your pocket?” asked Cerizet, sharply.

“I’ll tell you,” replied Theodose, who, as he walked from the rue Saint-Dominique to the Estrapade, had decided on his course of action.

The Provencal, writhing upon the gridiron on which his partners held him, became suddenly possessed with a good idea, which flashed from the body of the live coal under him.  Peril has gleams of light.  He resolved to rely on the power of frankness, which affects all men, even swindlers.  Every one is grateful to an adversary who bares himself to the waist in a duel.

“Well!” said Cerizet, “now the humbug begins.”

The words seemed to come wholly through the hole in his nose with horrible intonations.

“You have put me in a magnificent position, and I shall never forget the service you have done me, my friend,” began Theodose, with emotion.

“Oh, that’s how you take it, is it?” said Cerizet.

“Listen to me; you don’t understand my intentions.”

“Yes, I do!” replied the lender by “the little week.”

“No, you don’t.”

“You intend not to give up those fifteen thousand francs.”

Theodose shrugged his shoulders and looked fixedly at Cerizet, who, struck by the two motions, kept silence.

“Would you live in my position, knowing yourself within range of a cannon loaded with grape-shot, without feeling a strong desire to get out of it?  Now listen to me carefully.  You are doing a dangerous business, and you would be glad enough to have some solid protection in the very heart of the magistracy of Paris.  If I can continue my present course, I shall be substitute attorney-general, possibly attorney-general, in three years.  I offer you to-day the offices of a devoted friendship, which will serve you hereafter most assuredly, if only to replace you in a honorable position.  Here are my conditions—­”

“Conditions!” exclaimed Cerizet.

“In ten minutes I will bring you twenty-five thousand francs if you return to me all the notes which you have against me.”

“But Dutocq? and Claparon?” said Cerizet.

“Leave them in the lurch!” replied Theodose, with his lips at Cerizet’s ear.

“That’s a pretty thing to say!” cried Cerizet.  “And so you have invented this little game of hocus-pocus because you hold in your fingers fifteen thousand francs that don’t belong to you!”

“But I’ve added ten thousand francs to them.  Besides, you and I know each other.”

“If you are able to get ten thousand francs out of your bourgeois you can surely get fifteen,” said Cerizet.  “For thirty thousand I’m your man.  Frankness for frankness, you know.”

“You ask the impossible,” replied Theodose.  “At this very moment, if you had to do with Claparon instead of with me, your fifteen thousand would be lost, for Thuillier is to-day the owner of that house.”