he bile had struck in.

CHAPTER XIII. THE PERVERSITY OF DOVES

"I am a non-dispossessable property-owner!" cried Thuillier, coming home
after visiting his notary. "No human power can get that house away from
me. Cardot says so."

The bourgeoisie think much more of what their notary tells them than of
what their attorney says. The notary is nearer to them than any other
ministerial officer. The Parisian bourgeois never pays a visit to his
attorney without a sense of fear; whereas he mounts the stairs with
ever-renewed pleasure to see his notary; he admires that official's
virtue and his sound good sense.

"Cardot, who is looking for an apartment for one of his clients, wants
to know about our second floor," continued Thuillier. "If I choose he'll
introduce to me on Sunday a tenant who is ready to sign a lease for
eighteen years at forty thousand francs and taxes! What do you say to
that, Brigitte?"

"Better wait," she replied. "Ah! that dear Theodose, what a fright he
gave me!"

"Hey! my dearest girl, I must tell you that when Cardot asked who put me
in the way of this affair he said I owed him a present of at least ten
thousand francs. The fact is, I owe it all to him."

"But he is the son of the house," responded Brigitte.

"Poor lad! I'll do him the justice to say that he asks for nothing."

"Well, dear, good friend," said la Peyrade, coming in about three
o'clock, "here you are, richissime!"

"And through you, Theodose."

"And you, little aunt, have you come to life again? Ah! you were not
half as frightened as I was. I put your interests before my own; I
haven't breathed freely till this morning at eleven o'clock; and yet I
am sure now of having two mortal enemies at my heels in the two men I
have tricked for your sake. As I walked home, just now, I asked myself
what could be your influence over me to make me commit such a crime, and
whether the happiness of belonging to your family and becoming your son
could ever efface the stain I have put upon my conscience."

"Bah! you can confess it," said Thuillier, the free-thinker.

"And now," said Theodose to Brigitte, "you can pay, in all security,
the cost of the house,--eighty thousand francs, and thirty thousand
to Grindot; in all, with what you have paid in costs, one hundred and
twenty thousand; and this last twenty thousand added make one hundred
and forty thousand. If you let the house outright to a single tenant ask
him for the last year's re