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Completely insensible, Toupillier was now an inert mass, a dead-weight, which could, fortunately, be handled without much precaution, and the athletic Madame Cardinal, gathering strength from her cupidity, contrived, notwithstanding Cerizet's insufficient assistance, to effect the transfer of her uncle from one bed to the other.
Cerizet's plot was exceedingly simple, a commonplace stratagem familiar to the provincial bailiff. Its success entirely depends upon circumstances, and in this case it was certain, so intimate was Cerizet's knowledge of the characters and hopes of those concerned. Cerizet had been a kind of Don Juan among the young work-girls, ruling his victims by playing one off against another.
"Leave them in the lurch!" replied Theodose, with his lips at Cerizet's ear. "That's a pretty thing to say!" cried Cerizet. "And so you have invented this little game of hocus-pocus because you hold in your fingers fifteen thousand francs that don't belong to you!" "But I've added ten thousand francs to them. Besides, you and I know each other."
"Hey?" said la Peyrade to Thuillier, pointing to Madame Lambert, whose whole demeanor had something of the mother-wolf suddenly bereft of her cubs; "is that nature? tell me! Do you think now that madame and I are playing a comedy for your benefit?" "I am thunderstruck at Cerizet's audacity," said Thuillier.
"What! he that promoted a joint-stock company so nicely that the Sixth Chamber cut short his career with a couple of years in jail?" asked the lorette. "The same. Under the Restoration, between 1823 and 1827, Cerizet's occupation consisted in first putting his name intrepidly to various paragraphs, on which the public prosecutor fastened with avidity, and subsequently marching off to prison.
"The limit for bidding-in is passed," thought Theodose, as he went to find Dutocq and ask him to bring Cerizet to his office. "Suppose I were now to make an effort to get rid of my leech?" "You can't settle this affair anywhere but at Cerizet's, because Claparon must be present, and he is hiding there," said Dutocq.
"She did not stay in it six months. She was too handsome to keep a reading-room." "Perhaps you are the father of her child?" suggested the lorette. Desroches resumed. "Since the firm bought up Maxime's debts, Cerizet's likeness to a bailiff's officer grew more and more striking, and one morning after seven fruitless attempts he succeeded in penetrating into the Count's presence.
"Nothing easier; the gaffer has come fairly by his nickname," said Cerizet. At the sound of the fat Cointet's voice, Kolb guessed at once that they were talking about his master, especially as the sense of the words began to dawn upon him; but, when he recognized Cerizet's tones, his astonishment grew more and more. "Und dat fellow haf eaten his pread!" he thought, horror-stricken.
"Oh, come gentlemen! you only began your almanac after Cerizet told you that I was bringing out mine." She spoke briskly, looking full at "the tall Cointet" as she spoke. He lowered his eyes; Cerizet's treachery was proven to her. This brother managed the business and the paper-mill; he was by far the cleverer man of business of the two.
"Isn't he sly, that old villain!" exclaimed Madame Cardinal, while Cerizet's bony fingers felt the side of the safe over minutely. "Ha!" he exclaimed, after groping for ten minutes, "I have it!" During this time Madame Cardinal's life seemed actually suspended.
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