friends, let us have a clearing up. You are a
pack of scoundrels.

SCENE THIRD.
The same persons, Buteux, Philosopher and Fil-de-Soie.

Buteux
Present! Is the house on fire?

Fil-de-Soie
Is it some one burning with curiosity?

Buteux
A fire would be better, for it can be put out.

Philosopher
But the other can be choked.

Lafouraille
Bah! He has had enough of this trifling.

Buteux
So we are to have more moralizing--thank you for that.

Fil-de-Soie
He cannot want me for I have not been out.

Vautrin (to Fil-de-Soie)
You? The evening when I bade you exchange your scullion's cap for a
footman's hat--poisoner--

Fil-de-Soie
We will drop the extra names.

Vautrin
And you accompanied me as my footman to the field marshal's; while
helping me on with my cloak, you stole the watch of the Cossack
prince.

Fil-de-Soie
One of the enemies of France.

Vautrin
You, Buteux, you old malefactor, carried off the opera-glass of the
Princesse d'Arjos the evening she set down your young master at our
gate.

Buteux
It dropped on the carriage step.

Vautrin
You should have respectfully handed it back to her; but the gold and
the pearls appealed to your tigerish talons.

Lafouraille
Now, now, surely people can have a little fun? Devil take it! Did not
you, Jacques--

Vautrin
What do you mean?

Lafouraille
Did not you, Monsieur Vautrin, require thirty thousand francs that
this young man might live in princely style? We succeeded in
satisfying you in the fashion of foreign governments, by borrowing,
and getting credit. All those who come to ask for me leave some with
us. And you are not satisfied.

Fil-de-Soie
And if, when I am sent to buy provisions without a sou, I may not be
allowed to bring back some cash with me,--I might as well send in my
resignation.

Philosopher
And didn't I sell our custom to four different coach-builders--5,000
francs each clip--and the man who got the order lost all? One evening
Monsieur de Frescas starts off from home with wretched screws, and we
bring him back, Lafouraille and I, with a span worth ten thousand
francs, which have cost him only twenty glasses of brandy.

Lafouraille
No, it was Kirchenwasser.

Philosopher
Yes, and yet you fly into a rage--

Fil-de-Soie
How are you going to keep house now?

Vautrin
Do you expect to do things of this kind for long? What I have
permitted in order to set up our establishment, from this day forth I
forbid. You wish,