“My dear master, the Bank has refused to take your notes which the house of Claparon passed over to Gigonnet not guaranteed.  Is that my fault?  How is it that you, an old commercial judge, should commit such blunders?  I am, first and foremost, a banker.  I will give you my money, but I cannot risk having my signature refused at the Bank.  My credit is my life; that is the case with all of us.  Do you want money?”

“Can you give me what I want?”

“That depends on how much you owe.  How much do you want?”

“Thirty thousand francs.”

“Are the chimney-bricks coming down on my head?” exclaimed du Tillet, bursting into a laugh.

Cesar, misled by the luxury about him, fancied it was the laugh of a man to whom the sum was a mere trifle; he breathed again.  Du Tillet rang the bell.

“Send the cashier to me.”

“He has not come, monsieur,” said the valet.

“These fellows take advantage of me!  It is half-past eight o’clock, and he ought to have done a million francs’ worth of business by this time.”

Five minutes later Monsieur Legras came in.

“How much have we in the desk?”

“Only twenty thousand francs.  Monsieur gave orders to buy into the Funds to the amount of thirty thousand francs cash, payable on the 15th.”

“That’s true; I am half-asleep still.”

The cashier gave Birotteau a suspicious look as he left the room.

“If truth were banished from this earth, she would leave her last word with a cashier,” said du Tillet.  “Haven’t you some interest in this little Popinot, who has set up for himself?” he added, after a dreadful pause, in which the sweat rolled in drops from Cesar’s brow.

“Yes,” he answered, naively.  “Do you think you could discount his signature for a large amount?”

“Bring me his acceptances for fifty thousand francs, and I will get them discounted for you at a reasonable rate by old Gobseck, who is very easy to deal with when he has funds to invest; and he has some now.”

Birotteau went home broken-hearted, not perceiving that the bankers were tossing him from one to the other like a shuttle-cock; but Constance had already guessed that credit was unattainable.  If three bankers refused it, it was very certain that they had inquired of each other about so prominent a man as a deputy-mayor; and there was, consequently, no hope from the Bank of France.

“Try to renew your notes,” she said; “go and see Monsieur Claparon, your copartner, and all the others to whom you gave notes for the 15th, and ask them to renew.  It will be time enough to go to the money-lenders with Popinot’s paper if that fails.”

“To-morrow is the 13th,” said Birotteau, completely crushed.

In the language of his own prospectus, he enjoyed a sanguine temperament, which was subject to an enormous waste through emotions and the pressure of thought, and imperatively demanded sleep to repair it.  Cesarine took her father into the salon and played to him “Rousseau’s Dream,”—­a pretty piece of music by Herold; while Constance sat sewing beside him.  The poor man laid his head on a cushion, and every time he looked up at his wife he saw a soft smile upon her lips; and thus he fell asleep.