"Yes," replied Theodose.

"You must admit," cried Dutocq, "that my idea was a famous one, in
laying hold of that imbecile of a Thuillier?"

"Yes, but I'm not behindhand either," exclaimed Cerizet. "I have come
now to show you a way to put the thumbscrews on the old maid and make
her spin like a teetotum. We mustn't deceive ourselves; Mademoiselle
Thuillier is the head and front of everything in this affair; if we
get her on our side the town is won. Let us say little, but that
little to the point, as becomes strong men with each other. Claparon,
you know, is a fool; he'll be all his life what he always was,--a
cat's-paw. Just now he is lending his name to a notary in Paris, who
is concerned with a lot of contractors, and they are all--notary and
masons--on the point of ruin. Claparon is going headlong into it. He
never yet was bankrupt; but there's a first time for everything. He is
hidden now in my hovel in the rue des Poules, where no one will ever
find him. He is desperate, and he hasn't a penny. Now, among the five
or six houses built by these contractors, which have to be sold,
there's a jewel of a house, built of freestone, in the neighborhood of
the Madeleine,--a frontage laced like a melon, with beautiful
carvings,--but not being finished, it will have to be sold for what it
will bring; certainly not more than a hundred thousand francs. By
spending twenty-five thousand francs upon it it could be let,
undoubtedly, for ten thousand. Make Mademoiselle Thuillier the
proprietor of that house and you'll win her love; she'll believe that
you can put such chances in her way every year. There are two ways of
getting hold of vain people: flatter their vanity, _or_ threaten them;
and there are also two ways of managing misers: fill their purse, or
else attack it. Now, this stroke of business, while it does good to