n invention and one hundred francs!" said Dutocq. "You don't know the
laws; you must take out a patent, and that costs two thousand francs,
and you want influence."

"All that is true," said Cerizet, who, however, reckoned a good deal on
such chances. "Come to-morrow morning, papa Lantimeche, at six o'clock,
and we'll talk it over; you can't talk inventions in public."

Cerizet then turned to Dutocq whose first words were:--

"If the thing turns out well, half profits!"

"Why did you get up at this time in the morning to come here and say
that to me?" demanded the distrustful Cerizet, already displeased with
the mention of "half profits." "You could have seen me as usual at the
office."

And he looked askance at Dutocq; the latter, while telling him his
errand and speaking of Claparon and the necessity of pushing forward in
the Theodose affair, seemed confused.

"All the same you could have seen me this morning at the office,"
repeated Cerizet, conducting his visitor to the door.

"There's a man," thought he, as he returned to his seat, "who seems to
me to have breathed on his lantern so that I may not see clear. Well,
well, I'll give up that place of copying clerk. Ha! your turn, little
mother!" he cried; "you invent children! That's amusing enough, though
the trick is well known."

It is all the more useless to relate the conversation which took place
between the three confederates at the "Cheval Rouge," because the
arrangements there concluded were the basis of certain confidences
made, as we shall see, by Theodose to Mademoiselle Thuillier; but it is
necessary to remark that the cleverness displayed by la Peyrade seemed
almost alarming to Cerizet and Dutocq. After this conference, the banker
of the poor, finding himself in company with such powerful players, had
it in mind to make sure of his own stake at the first chance. To win the
game at any price over the heads of the ablest gamblers, by cheating if
necessary, is the inspiration of a special sort of vanity peculiar
to friends of the green cloth. Hence came the terrible blow which la
Peyrade was about to receive.

He knew his two associates well; and therefore, in spite of the
perpetual activity of his intellectual forces, in spite of the perpetual
watchfulness his personality of ten faces required, nothing fatigued him
as much as the part he had to play with his two accomplices. Dutocq was
a great knave, and Cerizet had once been a comic actor; they w