“We might try Barbet,” suggested Etienne, and they turned down to the Quai des Augustins.

“Coralie is astonished to the highest degree over Florine’s loss.  Florine only told her about it yesterday; she seemed to lay the blame of it on you, and was so vexed, that she was ready to throw you over.”

“That’s true,” said Lousteau.  Wine had got the better of prudence, and he unbosomed himself to Lucien, ending up with:  “My friend—­for you are my friend, Lucien; you lent me a thousand francs, and you have only once asked me for the money—­shun play!  If I had never touched a card, I should be a happy man.  I owe money all round.  At this moment I have the bailiffs at my heels; indeed, when I go to the Palais Royal, I have dangerous capes to double.”

In the language of the fast set, doubling a cape meant dodging a creditor, or keeping out of his way.  Lucien had not heard the expression before, but he was familiar with the practice by this time.

“Are your debts so heavy?”

“A mere trifle,” said Lousteau.  “A thousand crowns would pull me through.  I have resolved to turn steady and give up play, and I have done a little ‘chantage’ to pay my debts.”

“What is ’chantage’?” asked Lucien.

“It is an English invention recently imported.  A ‘chanteur’ is a man who can manage to put a paragraph in the papers—­never an editor nor a responsible man, for they are not supposed to know anything about it, and there is always a Giroudeau or a Philippe Bridau to be found.  A bravo of this stamp finds up somebody who has his own reasons for not wanting to be talked about.  Plenty of people have a few peccadilloes, or some more or less original sin, upon their consciences; there are plenty of fortunes made in ways that would not bear looking into; sometimes a man has kept the letter of the law, and sometimes he has not; and in either case, there is a tidbit of tattle for the inquirer, as, for instance, that tale of Fouche’s police surrounding the spies of the Prefect of Police, who, not being in the secret of the fabrication of forged English banknotes, were just about to pounce on the clandestine printers employed by the Minister, or there is the story of Prince Galathionne’s diamonds, the Maubreuile affair, or the Pombreton will case.  The ‘chanteur’ gets possession of some compromising letter, asks for an interview; and if the man that made the money does not buy silence, the ‘chanteur’ draws a picture of the press ready to take the matter up and unravel his private affairs.  The rich man is frightened, he comes down with the money, and the trick succeeds.