Hemerlingue enjoyed the sight of his friend reduced to such humility, and gave him advice on his affairs, with which he seemed to be fully acquainted.  According to him the Nabob could still get out of his difficulties very well.  Everything depended on the validation, on the turning up of a card.  The question was to make sure that it should be a good one.  But Jansoulet had no more confidence.  In losing Mora, he had lost everything.

“You lose Mora, but you regain me; so things are equalized,” said the banker tranquilly.

“No, do you see it is impossible.  It is too late.  Le Merquier has completed the report.  It is a dreadful one, I believe.”

“Well, if he has completed his report, he will have to prepare another.”

“How is that to be done?”

The baron looked at him with surprise.

“Ah, you are losing your senses.  Why, by paying him a hundred, two hundred, three hundred thousand francs, if necessary.

“How can you think of such a thing?  Le Merquier, that man of integrity!  ‘My conscience,’ as they call him.”

This time Hemerlingue’s laugh burst forth with an extraordinary heartiness, and must have reached the inmost recesses of the neighbouring mausoleums, little accustomed to such disrespect.

“‘My conscience’ a man of integrity!  Ah! you amuse me.  You don’t know, then, that he is in my pay, conscience and all, and that—­” He paused, and looked behind him, somewhat startled by a sound which he had heard.  “Listen.”

It was the echo of his laughter sent back to them from the depths of a vault, as if the idea of Le Merquier having a conscience moved even the dead to mirth.

“Suppose we walk a little,” said he, “it begins to be chilly on this bench.”

Then, as they walked among the tombs, he went on to explain to him with a certain pedantic fatuity, that in France bribes played as important a part as in the East.  Only one had to be a little more delicate about it here.  You veiled your bribes.  “Thus, take this Le Merquier, for instance.  Instead of offering him your money openly, in a big purse, as you would to a local pasha, you go about it indirectly.  The man is fond of pictures.  He is constantly having dealings with Schwalbach, who employs him as a decoy for his Catholic clients.  Well, you offer him some picture—­a souvenir to hang on a panel in his study.  The whole point is to make the price quite clear.  But you will see.  I will take you round to call on him myself.  I will show you how the thing is worked.”

And delighted at the amazement of the Nabob, who, to flatter him, exaggerated his surprise still further, and opened his eyes wide with an air of admiration, the banker enlarged the scope of his lesson—­made of it a veritable course of Parisian and worldly philosophy.

“See, old comrade, what one has to look after in Paris, above everything else, is the keeping up of appearances.  They are the only things that count—­appearances!  Now you have not sufficient care for them.  You go about town, your waistcoat unbuttoned, a good-humoured fellow, talking of your affairs, just what you are by nature.  You stroll around just as you would in the bazaars of Tunis.  That is how you have come to get bowled over, my good Bernard.”