De la Brive
Oh! Gambling is an unreliable resource excepting for certain crooks,
and I am not such a fool as to run the risk of disgrace for the sake
of winnings which always have their limit. Publicity, my dear friend,
has been the abolition of all those shady careers in which fortune
once was to be found. So, that for a hundred thousand francs of
accepted bills, the usurer gives me but ten thousand. Pierquin sent me
to one of his agents, a sort of sub-Pierquin, a little old man called
Violette, who said to my broker that he could not give me money on
such paper at any rate! Meanwhile my tailor has refused to bank upon
my prospects. My horse is living on credit; as to my tiger, the little
wretch who wears such fine clothes, I do now know how he lives, or
where he feeds. I dare not peer into the mystery. Now, as we are not
so advanced in civilization as the Jews, who canceled all debts every
half-century, a man must pay by the sacrifice of personal liberty.
Horrible things will be said about me. Here is a young man of high
esteem in the world of fashion, pretty lucky at cards, of a passable
figure, less than twenty-eight years old, and he is going to marry the
daughter of a rich speculator!

Mericourt
What difference does it make?

De la Brive
It is slightly off color! But I am tired of a sham life. I have
learned at last that the only way to amass wealth is to work. But our
misfortune is that we find ourselves quick at everything, but not good
at anything! A man like me, capable of inspiring a passion and of
maintaining it, cannot become either a clerk or a soldier! Society has
provided no employment for us. Accordingly, I am going to set up