“ ‘Twenty-five in ten days’ time,’ said I, ‘or I could not open the matter.’
“ ‘Precisely.’
“ ‘Well?’
“ ‘It is possible.’
“ ‘My word, we must be quick about it, or I shall have someone buying over my head.’
“ ‘Bring your certificate of birth round tomorrow morning, and we will talk. I will think it over.’
“ ‘Next morning, at eight o’clock, I stood in the old man’s room. He took the document, put on his spectacles, coughed, spat, wrapped himself up in his black greatcoat, and read the whole certificate through from beginning to end. Then he turned it over and over, looked at me, coughed again, fidgeted about in his chair, and said, ‘We will try to arrange this bit of business.’
“I trembled.
“ ‘I make fifty percent on my capital,’ he continued, ‘sometimes I make a hundred, two hundred, five hundred percent.’
“I turned pale at the words.
“ ‘But as we are acquaintances, I shall be satisfied to take twelve and a half percent per’—(he hesitated)—‘well, yes, from you I would be content to take thirteen percent per annum. Will that suit you?’
“ ‘Yes,’ I answered.
“ ‘But if it is too much, stick up for yourself, Grotius!’ (a name he jokingly gave me). ‘When I ask you for thirteen percent, it is all in the way of business; look into it, see if you can pay it; I don’t like a man to agree too easily. Is it too much?’
“ ‘No,’ said I, ‘I will make up for it by working a little harder.’
“ ‘Gad! your clients will pay for it!’ said he, looking at me wickedly out of the corner of his eyes.
“ ‘No, by all the devils in hell!’ cried I, ‘it shall be I who will pay. I would sooner cut my hand off than flay people.’
“ ‘Good night,’ said Daddy Gobseck.
“ ‘Why, fees are all according to scale,’ I added.
“ ‘Not for compromises and settlements out of Court, and cases where litigants come to terms,’ said he. ‘You can send in a bill for thousands of francs, six thousand even at a swoop (it depends on the importance of the case), for conferences with So-and-so, and expenses, and drafts, and memorials, and your jargon. A man must learn to look out for business of this kind. I will recommend you as a most competent, clever attorney. I will send you such a lot of work of this sort that your colleagues will be fit to burst with envy. Werbrust, Palma, and Gigonnet, my cronies, shall hand over their expropriations to you; they have plenty of them, the Lord knows! So you will have two practices—the one you are buying, and the other I will build up for you. You ought almost to pay me fifteen percent on my loan.’
“ ‘So be it, but no more,’ said I, with the firmness which means that a man is determined not to concede another point.
“Daddy Gobseck’s face relaxed; he looked pleased with me.
“ ‘I shall pay the money over to your principal myself,’ said he, ‘so as to establish a lien on the purchase and caution-money.’
“ ‘Oh, anything you like in the way of guarantees.’
“ ‘And besides that, you will give me bills for the amount made payable to a third party (name left blank), fifteen bills of ten thousand francs each.’
“ ‘Well, so long as it is acknowledged in writing that this is a double—’
“ ‘No!’ Gobseck broke in upon me. ‘No! Why should I trust you any more than you trust me?’
“I kept silence.
“ ‘And furthermore,’ he continued, with a sort of good humor, ‘you will give me your advice without charging fees as long as I live, will you not?’
“ ‘So be it; so long as there is no outlay.’
“ ‘Precisely,’ said he. “Ah, by the by, you will allow me to go to see you?’ (Plainly the old man found it not so easy to assume the air of good-humor.)
“ ‘I shall always be glad.’
“ ‘Ah! yes, but it would be very difficult to arrange of a morning. You will have your affairs to attend to, and I have mine.’
“ ‘Then come in the evening.’
“ ‘Oh, no!’ he answered briskly, ‘you ought to go into society and see your clients, and I myself have my friends at my café.’
“ ‘His friends!’ thought I to myself.—‘Very well,’ said I, ‘why not come at dinnertime?’
“ ‘That is the time,’ said Gobseck, ‘after ’Change, at five o’clock. Good, you will see me Wednesdays and Saturdays. We will talk over business like a pair of friends. Aha! I am gay sometimes. Just give me the wing of a partridge and a glass of champagne, and we will have our chat together. I know a great many things that can be told now at this distance of time; I will teach you to know men, and what is more—women!’
“ ‘Oh! a partridge and a glass of champagne if you like.’
“ ‘Don’t do anything foolish, or I shall lose my faith in you. And don’t set up housekeeping in a grand way. Just one old general servant. I will come and see that you keep your health. I have capital invested in your head, he! he! so I am bound to look after you. There, come round in the evening and bring your principal with you!’
“ ‘Would you mind telling me, if there is no harm in asking, what was the good of my birth certificate in this business?’ I asked, when the little old man and I stood on the doorstep.
“Jean-Esther Van Gobseck shrugged his shoulders, smiled maliciously, and said, ‘What blockheads youngsters are! Learn, master attorney (for learn you must if you don’t mean to be taken in), that integrity and brains in a man under thirty are commodities which can be mortgaged. After that age there is no counting on a man.’
“And with that he shut the door.
“Three months later I was an attorney. Before very long, madame, it was my good fortune to undertake the suit for the recovery of your estates. I won the day, and my name became known. In spite of
