lasses will long
tremble at sight of the executioner, and Gigonnet was the executioner of
petty commerce. In the markets no power on earth is so respected as that
of the man who controls the flow of money; all other human institutions
are as nothing beside him. Justice herself takes the form of a
commissioner, a familiar personage in the eyes of the market; but usury
seated behind its green boxes,--usury, entreated with fear tugging at
the heart-strings, dries up all jesting, parches the throat, lowers the
proudest look, and makes the commonest market women respectful.

"Do you want anything of me?" she said.

"A trifle, a mere nothing. Hold yourself ready to make good those notes
of Birotteau; the man has failed, and claims must be put in at once. I
will send you the account to-morrow morning."

Madame Madou's eyes contracted like those of a cat for a second, and
then shot out flames.

"Ah, the villain! Ah, the scoundrel! He came and told me himself he was
a deputy-mayor,--a trumped-up story! Reprobate! is that what he calls
business? There is no honor among mayors; the government deceives us.
Stop! I'll go and make him pay me; I will--"

"Hey! at such times everybody looks out for himself, my dear!" said
Gigonnet, lifting his leg with the quaint little action of a cat fearing
to cross a wet place,--a habit to which he owed his nickname. "There are
some very big wigs in the matter who mean to get themselves out of the
scrape."

"Yes, and I'll pull my nuts out of the fire, too! Marie-Jeanne, bring my
clogs and my rabbit-skin cloak; and quick, too, or I'll warm you up with
a box on the ear."

"There'll be warm work down there!" thought Gigonnet, rubbing his hands
as he walked away. "Du Tillet will be satisfied; it will make a fine
scandal all through the quarter. I don't know what that poor devil of
a perfumer has done to him; for my part I pity the fellow as I do a dog
with a broken leg. He isn't a man, he has got no force."

Madame Madou bore down, like an insurrectionary wave from the Faubourg
Saint-Antoine, upon the shop-door of the hapless Birotteau, which she
opened with excessive violence, for her walk had increased her fury.

"Heap of vermin! I want my money; I will have my money! You shall give
me my money, or I carry off your scent-bags, and that satin trumpery,
and the fans, and everything you've got here, for my two thousand
francs. Who ever heard of mayors robbing the people? If you don't pay me
I