That old or middle-aged men should find a zest in the pursuit of gain I can understand, but youth and avarice seem to me a new combination, which Moliere never divined in his 'Avare.'" "Young men, especially if young gentlemen, love pleasure; and pleasure in this city is very dear.

This explains why so many young men frequent the Bourse.

In the old gaining now suppressed, young men were the majority; in the days of your chivalrous forefathers it was the young nobles, not the old, who would stake their very mantles and swords on a cast of the die.

And, naturally enough, mon cher; for is not youth the season of hope, and is not hope the goddess of gaming, whether at rouge-et-noir or the Bourse ?" Alain felt himself more and more behind his generation.

The acute reasoning of Lemercier humbled his amour propre.