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The old fellow followed. He kept his ground. The brougham gained but little upon him. While running in the middle of the street, at the same time looking out for a cab, he kept saying to himself: "Hurry on, old fellow, hurry on. When one has no brains, one must use one's legs. Why didn't you think to get this woman's address from Clergeot?
"Yes," said he, wishing to obtain some more information, "I know that M. Gerdy spends a pretty round sum." Clergeot has the delicacy never to leave his clients undefended when attacked. "It isn't he personally," he objected, "who makes the money dance; its that charming little woman of his. Ah, she's no bigger than your thumb, but she'd eat the devil, hoofs, horns, and all!" What!
A sarcastic and most irritating little laugh, peculiar to old Clergeot, interrupted Noel. "It would be no good doing that," said the usurer; "mamma's purse has long been empty; and if the dear creature should die now, they tell me she is very ill, I would not give two hundred napoleons for the inheritance."
Lazare, round about the Rue de Provence, the neighbourhood of Notre Dame de Lorette, and all along the exterior Boulevards, from the Chaussee des Martyrs to the Rond-Point of the old Barriere de Clichy. M. Clergeot is no more a usurer than M. Jourdin's father was a shopkeeper.
In hurrying on, in pursuit of the truth, old Tabaret knew only too well, what it was. His conviction, unwillingly formed when Clergeot had told him of Noel's follies, had since been strengthened in a number of other ways.
"Clergeot," thought he, "didn't exaggerate a bit." Juliette's entrance disturbed his reflections. She had taken off her dress, and had hastily thrown about her a loose black dressing-gown, trimmed with cherry-coloured satin. Her beautiful hair, slightly disordered after her drive, fell in cascades about her neck, and curled behind her delicate ears. She dazzled old Tabaret. He began to understand.
"A handsome animal!" he said to himself; "my tenants receive some swell people." They apparently received visitors of an opposite class also, for, at that moment, he saw M. Clergeot came out, worthy M. Clergeot, whose presence in a house betrayed ruin just as surely as the presence of the undertakers announce a death.
On this occasion they departed by twos and threes, most of them agreeing in favor of Rabourdin; while the old stagers, like Monsieur Clergeot, shook their heads and said, "Habent sua sidera lites."
Soon after, in 1826, Colleville was appointed sub-director of the Clergeot division, and later, in 1828, collector of taxes in a Paris arrondissement. He also received the cross of the Legion of honor, to enable him to put his daughter at the royal school of Saint-Denis.
And forty-five days more of Juliette will cost " "M. Clergeot," interrupted Noel, "long before that time, my position will be completely changed. But I have finished," he added rising; "and my time is valuable." "One moment, you impatient fellow!" exclaimed the good-natured banker, "you said twenty-four thousand francs at forty-five days?" "Yes.
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