He now saw another future before him, and he managed his present affairs in order to be free to take hold of it.

In this midnight interview, he offered Claparon ten thousand francs to secure himself in this dirty business,--a sum which was only to be paid on receipt, through Claparon, of a counter-deed from the nominal purchaser of the property.

The notary was aware that that sum was all-important to Claparon to extricate him from present difficulties, and he felt secure of him.
"Who but you, in all Paris, would give me such a fee for such an affair ?" Claparon said to him, with a false show of naivete.

"You can sleep in peace; my ostensible purchaser is one of those men of honor who are too stupid to have ideas of your kind; he is a retired government employee; give him the money to make the purchase and he'll sign the counter-deed at once." When the notary had made Claparon clearly understand that he could not get more than the ten thousand francs from him, Cerizet offered the latter twelve thousand down, and asked Theodose for fifteen thousand, intending to keep the balance for himself.

All these scenes between the four men were seasoned with the finest speeches about feelings, integrity, and the honor that men owed to one another in doing business.
While these submarine performances were going on, apparently in the interests of Thuillier, to whom Theodose related them with the deepest manifestations of disgust at being implicated therein, the pair were meditating the great political work which "my dear good friend" was to publish.