I have not, like you, something to fall back upon." "Well, you poor fellow, this is how I reasoned: I said to myself, That good Dutocq is terribly pressed for the last payment on his practice; this will give him enough to pay it off at one stroke; events have proved that there are great uncertainties about our Theodose-and-Thuillier scheme; here's money down, live money, and therefore it won't be so bad a bargain after all." "It is a loss of two-fifths!" "Come," said Cerizet, "you were talking just now of commissions.

I see a means of getting one for you if you'll engage to batter down this Colleville marriage.

If you will cry it down as you have lately cried it up I shouldn't despair of getting you a round twenty thousand out of the affair." "Then you think that this new proposal will not be agreeable to la Peyrade,--that he'll reject it?
Is it some heiress on whom he has already taken a mortgage ?" "All that I can tell you is that these people expect some difficulty in bringing the matter to a conclusion." "Well, I don't desire better than to follow your lead and do what is disagreeable to la Peyrade; but five thousand francs--think of it!--it is too much to lose." At this moment the door opened, and a waiter ushered in the expected guest.
"You can serve dinner," said Cerizet to the waiter; "we are all here." It was plain that Theodose was beginning to take wing toward higher social spheres; elegance was becoming a constant thought in his mind.

He appeared in a dress suit and varnished shoes, whereas his two associates received him in frock-coats and muddy boots.
"Gentlemen," he said, "I think I am a little late, but that devil of a Thuillier is the most intolerable of human beings about a pamphlet I am concocting for him.

I was unlucky enough to agree to correct the proofs with him, and over every paragraph there's a fight.