not expressed in precisely this cut-and-dried way. Such an arrangement
consists in giving a lot of grown-up children a small pie in exchange
for a gold piece; and, like children of a smaller growth, they prefer
the pie to the gold piece, not suspecting that they might have a
couple of hundred pies for it."

"What is this all about, Bixiou?" cried Couture. "Nothing more _bona
fide_. Not a week passes but pies are offered to the public for a
louis. But who compels the public to take them? Are they not perfectly
free to make inquiries?"

"You would rather have it made compulsory to take up shares, would
you?" asked Blondet.

"No," said Finot. "Where would the talent come in?"

"Very good for Finot."

"Who put him up to it?" asked Couture.

"The fact was," continued Bixiou, "that Nucingen had twice had the
luck to present the public (quite unintentionally) with a pie that
turned out to be worth more than the money he received for it. That
unlucky good luck gave him qualms of conscience. A course of such luck
is fatal to a man in the long run. This time he meant to make no
mistake of this sort; he waited ten years for an opportunity of
issuing negotiable securities which should seem on the face of it to
be worth something, while as a matter of fact----"

"But if you look at banking in that light," broke in Couture, "no sort