have notice of your
transfer within two hours. Go!"

"I prefer to send in my resignation," said Marneffe insolently. "For it
is too much to be what I am already, and thrashed into the bargain. That
would not satisfy me at all."

And he left the room.

"What an impudent scoundrel!" said the Prince.

Marshal Hulot, who had stood up throughout this scene, as pale as a
corpse, studying his brother out of the corner of his eye, went up to
the Prince, and took his hand, repeating:

"In forty-eight hours the pecuniary mischief shall be repaired; but
honor!--Good-bye, Marshal. It is the last shot that kills. Yes, I shall
die of it!" he said in his ear.

"What the devil brought you here this morning?" said the Prince, much
moved.

"I came to see what can be done for his wife," replied the Count,
pointing to his brother. "She is wanting bread--especially now!"

"He has his pension."

"It is pledged!"

"The Devil must possess such a man," said the Prince, with a shrug.
"What philtre do those baggages give you to rob you of your wits?"
he went on to Hulot d'Ervy. "How could you--you, who know the precise
details with which in French offices everything is written down at full
length, consuming reams of paper to certify to the receipt or outlay
of a few centimes--you, who have so often complained that a hundred
signatures are needed for a mere trifle, to discharge a soldier, to buy
a curry-comb--how could you hope to conceal a theft for any length of
time? To say nothing of the newspapers, and the envious, and the people
who would like to steal!--those women must rob you of your common-sense!
Do they cover your eyes with walnut-shells? or are you yourself made of
different stuff from us?--You ought to have left the office as soon as
you found that you were no longer a man, but a temperament. If you have
complicated your crime with such gross folly, you will end--I will not
say where----"

"Promise me, Cottin, that you will do what you can for her," said the
Marshal, who heard nothing, and was still thinking of his sister-in-law.

"Depend on me!" said the Minister.

"Thank you, and good-bye then!--Come, monsieur," he said to his brother.

The Prince looked with apparent calmness at the two brothers, so
different in their demeanor, conduct, and character--the brave man
and the coward, the ascetic and the profligate, the honest man and the
peculator--and he said to himself:

"That mean creature will not have courage