Portail, "for, in order to tow you
into port it has been necessary to strip you of your rigging; unless
that were done, you would always have tried to navigate under your own
sails the bourgeois shoals that you are now among."

Seeing that he, undoubtedly, had to do with a strong hand, la Peyrade
thought best to modify his tone; and so, with a more circumspect air, he
said:--

"You will allow me, monsieur, to reserve my acknowledgments until I
receive some fuller explanation."

"Here you are, then," continued du Portail, "at twenty-eight years of
age, without a penny, virtually without a profession; with antecedents
that are very--middling; with associates like Monsieur Dutocq and the
courageous Cerizet; owing to Mademoiselle Thuillier ten thousand francs,
and to Madame Lambert twenty-five thousand, which you are no doubt
extremely desirous to return to her; and finally, this marriage, your
last hope, your sheet-anchor, has just become an utter impossibility.
Between ourselves, if I have something reasonable to propose to you, do
you not think that you had much better place yourself at my disposal?"

"I have time enough to prove that your opinion is mistaken," returned
la Peyrade; "and I shall not form any resolutions so long as the designs
you choose to have upon me are not more fully explained."

"You were spoken to, at my instigation, about a marriage," resumed du
Portail. "This marriage, as I think, is closely connected with a past
existence from which a certain hereditary or family duty has devolved
upon you. Do you know what that uncle of yours, to whom you applied
in 1829, was doing in Paris? In your family he was thought to be a
millionaire; and, dying suddenly, you remember, before you got to him,
he did not leave enough for his burial; a pauper's grave was all that
remained to him."

"Did you know him?" asked la Peyrade.

"He was my oldest and dearest friend," replied du Portail.

"If that is so," said la Peyrade, hastily, "a sum of two thousand
francs, which I received on my arrival in Paris from some unknown
source--"

"Came from me," replied du Portail. "Unfortunately, engaged at the time
in a rush of important affairs, which you shall hear of later, I could
not immediately follow up the benevolent interest I felt in you for your
uncle's sake; this explains why I left you in the straw of a garret,
where you came, like a medlar, to that maturity of ruin which brought
you under the hand of a Dutoc