nd of a year, the mortgagee has
a right to be impatient, has he not?"

"Certainly he has."

"Well, then, on fait un commandement tendant de saisie immobiliere, viz:
The mortgagee gives a notice that the property shall be put up for sale.
Then it is put up for sale, and in most cases the mortgagee buys it in.
Here, certainly, no competitors in the mere business way would vie with
Louvier; the mortgage at three and a half per cent. covers more than the
estate is apparently worth. Ah! but stop, M. le Marquis; the notice is
not yet served: the whole process would take six months from the day it
is served to the taking possession after the sale; in the meanwhile, if
you pay the interest due, the action drops. Courage, M. le Marquis! Hope
yet, if you condescend to call me friend."

"And me," cried Lemercier; "I will sell out of my railway shares
to-morrow-see to it, Duplessis--enough to pay off the damnable interest.
See to it, mon ami."

"Agree to that, M. le Marquis, and you are safe for another year," said
Duplessis, folding up the paper on which he had made his notes, but
fixing on Alain quiet eyes half concealed under drooping lids.

"Agree to that!" cried Rochebriant, rising--"agree to allow even my
worst enemy to pay for me moneys I could never hope to repay--agree
to allow the oldest and most confiding friends to do so--M. Duplessis,
never! If I carried the porter's knot of an Auverguat, I should still
remain gentilhomme and Breton."

Duplessis, habitually the driest of men, rose with a moistened eye and
flushing cheek--"Monsieur le Marquis, vouchsafe me the honour to shake
hands with you. I, too, am by descent gentilhomme, by profession a
speculator on the Bourse. In both capacities I approve the sentiment you
have uttered. Certainly, if our friend Frederic lent you 7000 Louis or
so this year, it would be impossible for you even to foresee the year
in which you could repay it; but,"--here Duplessis paused a minute, and
then lowering the tone of his voice, which had been somewhat vehement
and enthusiastic, into that of a colloquial good-fellowship, equally
rare to the measured reserve of the financier, he asked, with a lively
twinkle of his grey eye, "Did you never hear, Marquis, of a little
encounter between me and M. Louvier?"

"Encounter at arms--does Louvier fight?" asked Alain, innocently.

"In his own way he is always fighting; but I speak metaphorically. You
see this small house of mine--so pinched in