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Werbrust, Palma, and Gigonnet, my cronies, shall hand over their expropriations to you; they have plenty of them, the Lord knows! So you will have two practices the one you are buying, and the other I will build up for you. You ought almost to pay me fifteen per cent on my loan. "'So be it, but no more, said I, with the firmness which means that a man is determined not to concede another point.
"He is one of Gigonnet's lambs, a spy for Palma, Werbrust, Gobseck, and the rest of those crocodiles who swim in the Paris money-market. Every man with a fortune to make, or unmake, is sure to come across one of them sooner or later." "If you cannot discount your bills at fifty per cent," remarked Lousteau, "you must exchange them for hard cash." "How?"
Du Tillet knew the enormous underground part played in the world by such men as Werbrust and Gigonnet, commercial money-lenders in the Rues Saint-Denis and Saint-Martin; by Palma, banker in the Faubourg Poissonniere, all of whom were closely connected with Gobseck.
He helped to spread the panic, with a view to buying up Nucingen's paper himself and making a commission of two or three per cent out of Werbrust. "In a corner of the Bourse he came upon poor Matifat, who had three hundred thousand francs in Nucingen's bank. Matifat, ghastly and haggard, beheld the terrible Gigonnet, the bill-discounter of his old quarter, coming up to worry him.
I have the diamonds! he cried again and again, 'the beautiful diamonds! such diamonds! and tolerably cheaply. Aha! aha! Werbrust and Gigonnet, you thought you had old Papa Gobseck! Ego sum papa! I am master of the lot of you! Paid! paid, principal and interest! How silly they will look to-night when I shall come out with this story between two games of dominoes!
Shares in this new concern of ours have gone up twenty per cent already; they will go up to five-and-twenty by the end of the quarter; you know why. They are going to pay a splendid dividend. "'Sly dog, said Werbrust. 'Get along with you; you are a devil with long and sharp claws, and you have them deep in the butter. "'Just let me speak, or we shall not have time to operate.
Palma, Werbrust & Co., wholesale dealers in muslins, calicoes, and printed cotton goods, live there. Stay, I have it: Longueville the deputy has an interest in their house.
'Here is something serious; have you heard the news? asked du Tillet, drawing Werbrust into a corner. 'Here is Nucingen gone off to Brussels, and his wife petitioning for a separation of her estate. "'Are you and he in it together for a liquidation? asked Werbrust, smiling. "'No foolery, Werbrust, said du Tillet. 'You know the holders of his paper. Now, look here. There is business in it.
"While du Tillet, Werbrust, Claparon, Gigonnet, and others that thought themselves clever were fetching in Nucingen's paper from abroad with a premium of one per cent for it was still worth their while to exchange it for securities in a rising market there was all the more talk on the Bourse, because there was nothing now to fear.
You do not know him. "'Do you know how Nucingen and du Tillet stand? asked Desroches. "'Like this, said Taillefer; 'Nucingen is just the man to swallow down his old master's capital, and then to disgorge it. "'Ugh! ugh! coughed Werbrust, 'these churches are confoundedly damp; ugh! ugh! What do you mean by "disgorge it"?