's where I come in."

"Good, but we must know beforehand how much you are to get. Your
demands may be such that it would be better for him to stick to the
Recquillarts."

"Recquillart gets ten percent of the profits, besides a small commission
as broker. I will take five."

"It's a good deal."

"I will not accept less; the arrangement might cost me my career.
Consult him...."

"If I could consult him! The truth is that there may not be time. We
will accept five."

"What does the Minister wish to speculate in? The same things as with
Recquillart? Foreign Loans and Northerns?"

"Exactly. Just as before."

"All right. The investment, as you can see, is safe," Puchol continued.
"I would put my fortune in it, if I had one. There are a lot of
newspapers bought; all the financial reviews are predicting a rise."

The clerk took out a folded review and handed it to Caesar, who read:

"We are assured that the plan of the Spanish Minister of Finance must
make foreign securities rise considerably. Northerns will follow the
same path, and there are indications that their rise will be very rapid
and will cover several points."

"The field is going to be covered with corpses," said Caesar.

Senor Puchol burst out laughing; Caesar invited him to dine with him,
and gave him a sumptuous dinner with good wines.

Puchol was absolutely vain, and he boasted of his triumphs on the
Bourse; it was he who guided Recquillart in the dealings he had with
Spaniards, in which they had plucked various incautious persons.

"How much will the Minister's operation amount to?" Caesar asked him.

"Nobody can prevent his making three hundred thousand, at the least.
With the increase he has ordered you to make, it will come to six
hundred thousand. We will gobble up the two points it falls."

"I don't know if there may have been some new order while I was in the
train coming to Paris," said Caesar.

"No, his operation is all arranged," replied Puchol, and he got out a
note-book and consulted it. "It will be like giving away bread. We are
going to sell ten millions of Foreigns and five hundred Northerns on the
seventeenth, the eighteenth, and the twentieth."

"And the scoop will take place?" asked Caesar.

"On the 27th."

"So that on those days we shall sell just as much again?"

"And we shall sell much dearer."

They dropped that point and talked of other things.

Senor Puchol was a literary man and was writing a symbolistic dram