them about the hard times
and the difficulty of making money, he always ended by holding up to
them the dazzling profits which are yielded by certain investments
unknown to the public.

If these very proceedings had not betrayed him, it is because he
recommended to each the most inviolable secrecy, saying, that, at
the slightest indiscretion, he would be assailed with demands, and
that it would be impossible for him to do for all what he did for one.

At any rate, he took every thing that was offered, even the most
insignificant sums, affirming, with the most imperturbable assurance,
that he could double or treble them without the slightest risk.

The catastrophe having come, the smaller creditors showed themselves,
as usual, the most angry and the most intractable. The less money
one has, the more anxious one is to keep it. There was there an old
newspaper-vender, who had placed in M. Favoral's hands all she had
in the world, the savings of her entire life,--five hundred francs.
Clinging desperately to Maxence's garments, she begged him to give
them back to her, swearing, that, if he did not, there was nothing
left for her to do, except to throw herself in the river. Her groans
and her cries of distress exasperated the other creditors.

That the cashier of the Mutual Credit should have embezzled millions,
they could well understand, they said. But that he could have
robbed this poor woman of her five hundred francs,--nothing more
low, more cowardly, and more vile could be imagined; and the law
had no chastisement severe enough for such a crime.

"Give her back her five hundred francs;" they cried. For there was
not one of them but would have wagered his head that M. Favoral had
lots of money put away; and some went even so far as to say that he
must have hid it in the house, and, if they looked well, they would
find it.

Maxence, bewildered, was at a loss what to do, when, in the midst
of this hostile crowd, he perceived M. Chapelain's friendly face.

Driven from his bed at daylight by the bitter regrets at the heavy
loss he had just sustained, the old lawyer had arrived in the Rue
St. Gilles at the very moment when the creditors invaded M. Favoral's
apartment. Standing behind the crowd, he had seen and heard every
thing without breathing a word; and, if he interfered now, it was
because he thought things were about to take an ugly turn. He was
well known; and, as soon as he showed himself,

"He is a f