a little old man called Violette, who said to my broker that he could not give me money on such paper at any rate!  Meanwhile my tailor has refused to bank upon my prospects.  My horse is living on credit; as to my tiger, the little wretch who wears such fine clothes, I do now know how he lives, or where he feeds.  I dare not peer into the mystery.  Now, as we are not so advanced in civilization as the Jews, who canceled all debts every half-century, a man must pay by the sacrifice of personal liberty.  Horrible things will be said about me.  Here is a young man of high esteem in the world of fashion, pretty lucky at cards, of a passable figure, less than twenty-eight years old, and he is going to marry the daughter of a rich speculator!

Mericourt
What difference does it make?

De la Brive It is slightly off color!  But I am tired of a sham life.  I have learned at last that the only way to amass wealth is to work.  But our misfortune is that we find ourselves quick at everything, but not good at anything!  A man like me, capable of inspiring a passion and of maintaining it, cannot become either a clerk or a soldier!  Society has provided no employment for us.  Accordingly, I am going to set up business with Mercadet.  He is one of the greatest of schemers.  You are sure that he won’t give less than a hundred and fifty thousand francs to his daughter.

Mericourt Judge yourself, my dear friend, from the style which Mme. Mercadet puts on; you see her at all the first nights, in her own box, at the opera, and her conspicuous elegance—­

De la Brive
I myself am elegant enough, but—­

Mericourt
Look round you here—­everything indicates opulence—­Oh! they are well
off!

De la Brive
Yet, it is a sort of middle-class splendor, something substantial
which promises well.

Mericourt
And then the mother is a woman of principle, of irreproachable
behavior.  Can you possibly conclude matters to-day?

De la Brive I have taken steps to do so.  I won at the club yesterday sufficient to go on with; I shall pay something on the wedding presents, and let the balance stand.

Mericourt
Without reckoning my account, what is the amount of your debts?

De la Brive A mere trifle!  A hundred and fifty thousand francs, which my father-in-law will cut down to fifty thousand.  I shall have a hundred thousand francs left to begin life on.  I always said that I should never become rich until I hadn’t a sou left.

Mericourt
Mercadet is an astute man; he will question you about your fortune;
are you prepared?

De la Brive Am I not the landed proprietor of La Brive?  Three thousand acres in the Landes, which are worth thirty thousand francs, mortgaged for forty-five thousand and capable of being floated by a stock jobbing company for some commercial purpose or other, say, as representing a capital of a hundred thousand crowns!  You cannot imagine how much this property has brought me in.