ht."

"There's never more pleasure," said the notary Cardot, "than in just
such improvised balls. Don't talk to me of parties where everybody
stands on ceremony."

This opinion, we may remark, is a standing axiom among the bourgeoisie.

"Well, for my part," said Madame Minard, "I prefer the dignified old
ways."

"We didn't mean that for you, madame; your salon is the chosen haunt of
pleasure," said Dutocq.

When "La Boulangere" came to an end, Theodose pulled Dutocq from the
sideboard where he was preparing to eat a slice of tongue, and said to
him:--

"Let us go; we must be at Cerizet's very early in the morning; we ought
both of us to think over that affair; it is not so easy to manage as
Cerizet seems to imagine."

"Why not?" asked Dutocq, bringing his slice of tongue to eat in the
salon.

"Don't you know the law?"

"I know enough of it to be aware of the dangers of the affair. If that
notary wants the house and we filch it from him, there are means
by which he can recover it; he can put himself into the skin of a
registered creditor. By the present legal system relating to mortgages,
when a house is sold at the request of creditors, if the price obtained
for it at auction is not enough to pay all debts, the owners have the
right to bid it in and hold it for a higher sum; now the notary, seeing
himself caught, may back out of the sale in that way."

"Well," said la Peyrade, "it needs attention."

"Very good," replied Dutocq, "we'll go and see Cerizet."

These words, "go and see Cerizet," were overheard by Minard, who was
following the two associates; but they offered no meaning to his mind.
The two men were so outside of his own course and projects that he heard
them without listening to them.

"This has been one of the finest days in our lives," said Brigitte
to her brother, when she found herself alone with him in the deserted
salon, at half-past two in the morning. "What a distinction! to be thus
selected by your fellow-citizens!"

"Don't be mistaken about it, Brigitte; we owe it all, my child, to one
man."

"What man?"

"To our friend, la Peyrade."

CHAPTER IX. THE BANKER OF THE POOR

It was not on the next day, Monday, but on the following day, Tuesday,
that Dutocq and Theodose went to see Cerizet, the former having called
la Peyrade's attention to the fact that Cerizet always absented himself
on Sundays and Mondays, taking advantage of the total absence of clients
on those days,