If anything happens to him, mark you, I'll do something that may send me to the scaffold--and you, you haven't any feeling about him--" A quarrel thus begun between Minoret and his wife was sure not to end without a long and angry strife.

So at the moment of his self-satisfaction the foolish robber found his inward struggle against himself and against Ursula revived by his own fault, and complicated with a new and terrible adversary.

The next day, when he left the house early to find Goupil and try to appease him with additional money, the walls were already placarded with the words: "Minoret is a thief." All those whom he met commiserated him and asked him who was the author of the anonymous placard.

Fortunately for him, everybody made allowance for his equivocal replies by reflecting on his utter stupidity; fools get more advantage from their weakness than able men from their strength.
The world looks on at a great man battling against fate, and does not help him, but it supplies the capital of a grocer who may fail and lose all.

Why?
Because men like to feel superior in protecting an incapable, and are displeased at not feeling themselves the equal of a man of genius.