Apply to Gobseck; he is softer." The usurers all applauded these doctrines with a shake of their metallic heads.

An onlooker would have fancied he heard the creaking of ill-oiled machinery.
"Come, Gigonnet, show a little feeling," said Chaboisseau, "they've knit your stockings for thirty years." "That counts for something," remarked Gobseck.
"Are you all alone?
Is it safe to speak ?" said Mitral, looking carefully about him.

"I come about a good piece of business." "If it is good, why do you come to us ?" said Gigonnet, sharply, interrupting Mitral.
"A fellow who was a gentleman of the Bedchamber," went on Mitral, "a former 'chouan,'-- what's his name ?--La Billardiere is dead." "True," said Gobseck.
"And our nephew is giving monstrances to the church," snarled Gigonnet.
"He is not such a fool as to give them, he sells them, old man," said Mitral, proudly.

"He wants La Billardiere's place, and in order to get it, we must seize--" "Seize! You'll never be anything but a sheriff's officer," put in Metivier, striking Mitral amicably on the shoulder; "I like that, I do!" "Seize Monsieur Clement des Lupeaulx in our clutches," continued Mitral; "Elisabeth has discovered how to do it, and he is--" "Elisabeth"; cried Gigonnet, interrupting again; "dear little creature! she takes after her grandfather, my poor brother! he never had his equal! Ah, you should have seen him buying up old furniture; what tact! what shrewdness! What does Elisabeth want ?" "Hey! hey!" cried Mitral, "you've got back your bowels of compassion, papa Gigonnet! That phenomenon has a cause." "Always a child," said Gobseck to Gigonnet, "you are too quick on the trigger." "Come, Gobseck and Gigonnet, listen to me; you want to keep well with des Lupeaulx, don't you?
You've not forgotten how you plucked him in that affair about the king's debts, and you are afraid he'll ask you to return some of his feathers," said Mitral.
"Shall we tell him the whole thing ?" asked Gobseck, whispering to Gigonnet.
"Mitral is one of us; he wouldn't play a shabby trick on his former customers," replied Gigonnet.

"You see, Mitral," he went on, speaking to the ex-sheriff in a low voice, "we three have just bought up all those debts, the payment of which depends on the decision of the liquidation committee." "How much will you lose ?" asked Mitral.
"Nothing," said Gobseck.
"Nobody knows we are in it," added Gigonnet; "Samanon screens us." "Come, listen to me, Gigonnet; it is cold, and your niece is waiting outside.