"Wall for wall!" he said.
In 1827 Vilquin offered Dumay a salary of six thousand francs, and ten thousand more as indemnity, if he would give up the lease.

The cashier refused; though he had but three thousand francs from Gobenheim, a former clerk of his master.

Dumay was a Breton transplanted by fate into Normandy.

Imagine therefore the hatred conceived for the tenants of the Chalet by the Norman Vilquin, a man worth three millions! What criminal leze-million on the part of a cashier, to hold up to the eyes of such a man the impotence of his wealth! Vilquin, whose desperation in the matter made him the talk of Havre, had just proposed to give Dumay a pretty house of his own, and had again been refused.

Havre itself began to grow uneasy at the man's obstinacy, and a good many persons explained it by the phrase, "Dumay is a Breton." As for the cashier, he thought Madame and Mademoiselle Mignon would be ill-lodged elsewhere.