He had helped in sending off Falleix expeditiously, explaining to him the advantage of taking post horses.

After which, while eating his dinner, he reflected that it be as well to give a twist of his own to the clever plan invented by Elisabeth.
When they reached the Cafe Themis he told his niece that he alone could manage Gigonnet in the matter they both had in view, and he made her wait in the hackney-coach and bide her time to come forward at the right moment.

Elisabeth saw through the window-panes the two faces of Gobseck and Gigonnet (her uncle Bidault), which stood out in relief against the yellow wood-work of the old cafe, like two cameo heads, cold and impassible, in the rigid attitude that their gravity gave them.

The two Parisian misers were surrounded by a number of other old faces, on which "thirty per cent discount" was written in circular wrinkles that started from the nose and turned round the glacial cheek-bones.

These remarkable physiognomies brightened up on seeing Mitral, and their eyes gleamed with tigerish curiosity.
"Hey, hey! it is papa Mitral!" cried one of them, named Chaboisseau, a little old man who discounted for a publisher.
"Bless me, so it is!" said another, a broker named Metivier, "ha, that's an old monkey well up in his tricks." "And you," retorted Mitral, "you are an old crow who knows all about carcasses." "True," said the stern Gobseck.
"What are you here for?
Have you come to seize friend Metivier ?" asked Gigonnet, pointing to the broker, who had the bluff face of a porter.
"Your great-niece Elisabeth is out there, papa Gigonnet," whispered Mitral.
"What! some misfortune ?" said Bidault.