d
you accept?"

"Conditionally; I asked time for reflection. I wanted to know what you
thought of the offer."

"Parbleu! I think that out of an evil that can't be remedied we should
get, as the proverb says, wing or foot. I had rather see you inside than
outside of that enterprise."

"Very good; but in order to get into it there's a difficulty. La Peyrade
knows I have debts, and he won't help me with the thirty-three-thousand
francs' security which must be paid down in my name. I haven't got them,
and if I had, I wouldn't show them and expose myself to the insults of
creditors."

"You must have a good deal left of that twenty-five thousand francs la
Peyrade paid you not more than two months ago," remarked du Portail.

"Only two thousand two hundred francs and fifty centimes," replied
Cerizet. "I was adding it up last night; the rest has all gone to pay
off pressing debts."

"But if you have paid your debts you haven't any creditors."

"Yes, those I've paid, but those I haven't paid I still owe."

"Do you mean to tell me that your liabilities were more than twenty-five
thousand francs?" said du Portail, in a tone of incredulity.

"Does a man go into bankruptcy for less?" replied Cerizet, as though he
were enunciating a maxim.

"Well, I see I am expected to pay that sum myself," said du Portail,
crossly; "but the question is whether the utility of your presence
in this enterprise is worth to me the interest on one hundred
and thirty-three thousand, three hundred and thirty-three francs,
thirty-three centimes."

"Hang it!" said Cerizet, "if I were once installed near Thuillier, I
shouldn't despair of soon putting him and la Peyrade at loggerheads.
In the management of a newspaper there are lots of inevitable
disagreements, and by always taking the side of the fool against the
clever man, I can increase the conceit of one and wound the conceit of
the other until life together becomes impossible. Besides, you spoke
just now of political danger; now the manager of a newspaper, as you
ought to know, when he has the intellect to be something better than a
man of straw, can quietly give his sheet a push in the direction wanted.

"There's a good deal of truth in that," said du Portail, "but defeat to
la Peyrade, that's what I am thinking about."

"Well," said Cerizet, "I think I have another nice little insidious
means of demolishing him with Thuillier."

"Say what it is, then!" exclaimed du Portail, impatiently