en
years, paying interest and living respectably in the meantime--if
he could command confidence. But I as the seventh child of a small
tradesman at Noyon, I had not a sou to my name, nor personal knowledge
of any capitalist but Daddy Gobseck. An ambitious idea, and an
indefinable glimmer of hope, put heart into me. To Gobseck I betook
myself, and slowly one evening I made my way to the Rue des Gres. My
heart thumped heavily as I knocked at his door in the gloomy house. I
recollected all the things that he used to tell me, at a time when I
myself was very far from suspecting the violence of the anguish awaiting
those who crossed his threshold. Now it was I who was about to beg and
pray like so many others.

"'Well, no, not _that_,' I said to myself; 'an honest man must keep his
self-respect wherever he goes. Success is not worth cringing for; let us
show him a front as decided as his own.'

"Daddy Gobseck had taken my room since I left the house, so as to have
no neighbor; he had made a little grated window too in his door since
then, and did not open until he had taken a look at me and saw who I
was.

"'Well,' said he, in his thin, flute notes, 'so your principal is
selling his practice?'

"'How did you know that?' said I; 'he has not spoken of it as yet except
to me.'

"The old man's lips were drawn in puckers, like a curtain, to either
corner of his mouth, as a soundless smile bore a hard glance company.

"'Nothing else would have brought you here,' he said drily, after a
pause, which I spent in confusion.

"'Listen to me, M. Gobseck,' I began, with such serenity as I could
assume before the old man, who gazed at me with steady eyes. There was a
clear light burning in them that disconcerted me.

"He made a gesture as if to bid me 'Go on.' 'I know that it is not
easy to work on your feelings, so I will not waste my eloquence on the
attempt to put my position before you--I am a penniless clerk, with no
one to look to but you, and no heart in the world but yours can form
a clear idea of my probable future. Let us leave hearts out of the
question. Business is business, and business is not carried on with
sentimentality like romances. Now to the facts. My principal's practice
is worth in his hands about twenty thousand francs per annum; in my
hands, I think it would bring in forty thousand. He is willing to
sell it for a hundred and fifty thousand francs. And _here_,' I
said, striking my forehead, 'I feel that