United States or Lebanon ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
If his father, that big farmer who is as close as a snail, won't sell a hundred thousand francs worth of land Xandrot can't be a notary, for Roguin's practice is worth four or five hundred thousand. If Crottat does not pay half down, how could he negotiate the affair?
The conversation of the elders became animated when Popinot the judge let fall a word about Roguin's flight, remarking that he was the second notary who had absconded, a crime formerly unknown. Madame Ragon, at the word Roguin, touched her brother's foot, Pillerault spoke loudly to drown his voice, and both made him a sign to remember Madame Birotteau.
"I thought you would not be unwilling that I should explain your situation to Monsieur le president; he has ordered that all Roguin's papers be submitted to the custody of the court, so as to ascertain the exact time when Roguin made away with the funds of his client, and thus verify the facts alleged by Derville, who made the argument himself to save you the expense."
They have gone so far as to say you had no property in Roguin's hands; according to your enemies, Roguin is only a blind. A friend of mine, whom I sent about to learn what is going on, confirms what I tell you. Every one foresees that Popinot will issue notes, and believes that you set him up in business expressly as a last resource.
Roguin's assets will give fifty per cent to the creditors, so little Crottat tells me. Besides this, Monsieur Birotteau gets back the forty thousand on his note to Roguin's client, which the lender never paid over; then, of course, he can borrow on that property. We have four months ahead before we are obliged to make a payment of two hundred thousand francs to the sellers.
As he left the notary's house, he saw du Tillet at the window of Roguin's study. Although the liaison of his former clerk with the lawyer's wife made it not unlikely that he should see du Tillet there at this hour when the negotiations about the Madeleine were going on, Birotteau, in spite of his extreme confidence, felt uneasy. The excited manner of du Tillet seemed the sign of a discussion.
Madame Roguin's gossip naturally inspired Augustine with a wish to see the pictures, and with courage enough to ask her cousin secretly to take her to the Louvre. Her cousin succeeded in the negotiations she opened with Madame Guillaume for permission to release the young girl for two hours from her dull labors. Augustine was thus able to make her way through the crowd to see the crowned work.
In spite of Roguin's clever precautions, Monsieur and Madame Ragon, people of old-fashioned middle-class breeding, the observer Pillerault, Cesarine, and her mother were disagreeably impressed at first sight by this sham banker of high finance.
Well, then, a hundred thousand francs, or even eight thousand francs a year, is nothing at all towards buying Roguin's practice. Little Xandrot, as we call him, thinks, like all the rest of the world, that we are richer than we are.
Every man who is cursed with some bodily infirmity, no matter what it is, club-feet, a halting-gait, a humped-back, excessive ugliness, claret stains upon the cheek, Roguin's species of deformity, and other monstrosities the result of causes beyond the control of the sufferer, has but two courses open to him: either he must make himself feared, or he must practise the virtues of exquisite loving-kindness; he is not permitted to float in the middle currents of average conduct which are habitual to other men.
Word Of The Day