"I shall succeed."

"But you haven't a sou."

"I will write a play."

"It will fail."

"Let it fail!" replied Nathan.

He rushed through the various rooms of Florine's apartment, followed
by Blondet, who thought him crazy, looking with a greedy eye upon the
wealth displayed there. Blondet understood that look.

"There's a hundred and more thousand francs in them," he remarked.

"Yes," said Raoul, sighing, as he looked at Florine's sumptuous
bedstead; "but I'd rather be a pedler all my life on the boulevard,
and live on fried potatoes, than sell one item of this apartment."

"Not one item," said Blondet; "sell all. Ambition is like death; it
takes all or nothing."

"No, a hundred times no! I would take anything from my new countess;
but rob Florine of her shell? no."

"Upset our money-box, break one's balance-pole, smash our refuge,
--yes, that would be serious," said Blondet with a tragic air.

"It seems to me from what I hear that you want to play politics