“That is true,” cried Birotteau.  “My son, God—­is it not Voltaire who says,—­

  “’He rendered repentance the virtue of mortals’?”

“Provided,” answered du Tillet, stabbed afresh by this quotation, —­“provided they do not carry off the property of their neighbors, basely, meanly; as, for example, you would do if you failed within three months, and my ten thousand francs went to perdition.”

“I fail!” cried Birotteau, who had taken three glasses of wine, and was half-drunk with joy.  “Everybody knows what I think about failure!  Failure is death to a merchant; I should die of it!”

“I drink your health,” said du Tillet.

“Your health and prosperity,” returned Cesar.  “Why don’t you buy your perfumery from me?”

“The fact is,” said du Tillet, “I am afraid of Madame Cesar; she always made an impression on me.  If you had not been my master, on my word!  I—­”

“You are not the first to think her beautiful; others have desired her; but she loves me!  Well, now, du Tillet, my friend,” resumed Birotteau, “don’t do things by halves.”

“What is it?”

Birotteau explained the affair of the lands to his former clerk, who pretended to open his eyes wide, and complimented the perfumer on his perspicacity and penetration, and praised the enterprise.

“Well, I am very glad to have your approbation; you are thought one of the wise-heads of the banking business, du Tillet.  Dear fellow, you might get me a credit at the Bank of France, so that I can wait for the profits of Cephalic Oil at my ease.”

“I can give you a letter to the firm of Nucingen,” answered du Tillet, perceiving that he could make his victim dance all the figures in the reel of bankruptcy.

Ferdinand sat down to his desk and wrote the following letter:—­

To Monsieur le baron de Nucingen: 

My dear Baron,—­The bearer of this letter is Monsieur Cesar Birotteau, deputy-mayor of the second arrondissement, and one of the best known manufacturers of Parisian perfumery; he wishes to have business relations with your house.  You can confidently do all that he asks of you; and in obliging him you will oblige

Your friend,
F. Du Tillet.

Du Tillet did not dot the i in his signature.  To those with whom he did business this intentional error was a sign previously agreed upon.  The strongest recommendations, the warmest appeals contained in the letter were to mean nothing.  All such letters, in which exclamation marks were suppliants and du Tillet placed himself, as it were, upon his knees, were to be considered as extorted by necessity; he could not refuse to write them, but they were to be regarded as not written.  Seeing the i without a dot, the correspondent was to amuse the petitioner with empty promises.  Even men of the world, and sometimes the most distinguished, are thus gulled like children by business men, bankers, and lawyers, who all have a double signature,—­one dead, the other living.  The cleverest among them are fooled in this way.  To understand the trick, we must experience the two-fold effects of a warm letter and a cold one.