term applied by retail shopkeepers to their customers, and used by Cesar in spite of his wife, who however ended by saying, “Call them what you like, provided they pay!”—­his clients, then, were rich people, through whom he had never lost money, who paid when they pleased, and among whom Cesar often had a floating amount of fifty or sixty thousand francs due to him.  The second clerk went through the books and copied off the largest sums.  Cesar dreaded his wife:  that she might not see his depression under this simoom of misfortune, he prepared to go out.

“Good morning, monsieur,” said Grindot, entering with the lively manner artists put on when they speak of business, and wish to pretend they know nothing about it; “I cannot get your paper cashed, and I am obliged to ask you to give me the amount in ready money.  I am truly unhappy in making this request, but I don’t wish to go to the usurers.  I have not hawked your signature about; I know enough of business to feel sure it would injure you.  It is really in your own interest that I—­”

“Monsieur,” said Birotteau, horrified, “speak lower if you please; you surprise me strangely.”

Lourdois entered.

“Lourdois,” said Birotteau, smiling, “would you believe—­”

The poor man stopped short; he was about to ask the painter to take the note given to Grindot, ridiculing the architect with the good nature of a merchant sure of his own standing; but he saw a cloud upon Lourdois’ brow, and he shuddered at his own imprudence.  The innocent jest would have been the death of his suspected credit.  In such a case a prosperous merchant takes back his note, and does not offer it elsewhere.  Birotteau felt his head swim, as though he had looked down the sides of a precipice into a measureless abyss.

“My dear Monsieur Birotteau,” said Lourdois, drawing him to the back of the shop, “my account has been examined, audited, and certified; I must ask you to have the money ready for me to-morrow.  I marry my daughter to little Crottat; he wants money, for notaries will not take paper; besides, I never give promissory notes.”

“Send to me on the day after to-morrow,” said Birotteau proudly, counting on the payment of his own bills.  “And you too, Monsieur,” he said to the architect.

“Why not pay at once?” said Grindot.

“I have my workmen in the faubourg to pay,” said Birotteau, who knew not how to lie.

He took his hat once more intending to follow them out, but the mason, Thorein, and Chaffaroux stopped him as he was closing the door.

“Monsieur,” said Chaffaroux, “we are in great need of money.”

“Well, I have not the mines of Peru,” said Cesar, walking quickly away from them.  “There is something beneath all this,” he said to himself.  “That cursed ball!  All the world thinks I am worth millions.  Yet Lourdois had a look that was not natural; there’s a snake in the grass somewhere.”