“Agreed!” said Petit-Claud, promptly making up his mind. “I don’t ask you for guarantees; I am an attorney. If anyone plays me a trick, there will be an account to settle between us.”
“The rogue will go far,” thought Cointet; he bade Petit-Claud good morning.
The day after this conference was the 30th of April, and the Cointets presented the first of the three bills forged by Lucien. Unluckily, the bill was brought to poor Mme. Séchard; and she, seeing at once that the signature was not in her husband’s handwriting, sent for David and asked him point-blank:
“You did not put your name to that bill, did you?”
“No,” said he; “your brother was so pressed for time that he signed for me.”
Eve returned the bill to the bank messenger sent by the Cointets.
“We cannot meet it,” she said; then, feeling that her strength was failing, she went up to her room. David followed her.
“Go quickly to the Cointets, dear,” Eve said faintly; “they will have some consideration for you; beg them to wait; and call their attention besides to the fact that when Cérizet’s lease is renewed, they will owe you a thousand francs.”
David went forthwith to his enemies. Now, any foreman may become a master printer, but there are not always the makings of a good man of business in a skilled typographer; David knew very little of business; when, therefore, with a heavily-beating heart and a sensation of throttling, David had put his excuses badly enough and formulated his request, the answer—“This is nothing to do with us; the bill has been passed on to us by Métivier; Métivier will pay us. Apply to M. Métivier”—cut him short at once.
“Oh!” cried Eve when she heard the result, “as soon as the bill is returned to M. Métivier, we may be easy.”
At two o’clock the next day, Victor-Ange-Herménégilde Doublon, bailiff, made protest for nonpayment at two o’clock, a time when the Place du Mûrier is full of people; so that though Doublon was careful to stand and chat at the back door with Marion and Kolb, the news of the protest was known all over the business world of Angoulême that evening. Tall Cointet had enjoined it upon Master Doublon to show the Séchards the greatest consideration; but when all was said and done, could the bailiff’s hypocritical regard for appearances save Eve and David from the disgrace of a suspension of payment? Let each judge for himself. A tolerably long digression of this kind will seem all too short; and ninety out of every hundred readers shall seize with avidity upon details that possess all the piquancy of novelty, thus establishing yet once again the trust of the well-known axiom, that there is nothing so little known as that which everybody is supposed to know—the Law of the Land, to wit.
And of a truth, for the immense majority of Frenchmen, a minute description of some part of the machinery of banking will be as interesting as any chapter of foreign travel. When a tradesman living in one town gives a bill to another tradesman elsewhere (as David was supposed to have done for Lucien’s benefit), the transaction ceases to be a simple promissory note, given in the way of business by one tradesman to another in the same place, and becomes in some sort a letter of exchange. When, therefore, Métivier accepted Lucien’s three bills, he was obliged to send them for collection to his correspondents in Angoulême—to Cointet Brothers, that is to say. Hence, likewise, a certain initial loss for Lucien in exchange on Angoulême, taking the practical shape of an abatement of so much percent over and above the discount. In this way Séchard’s bills had passed into circulation in the bank. You would not believe how greatly the quality of banker, united with the august title of creditor, changes the debtor’s position. For instance, when a bill has been passed through the bank (please note that expression), and transferred from the money market in Paris to the financial world of Angoulême, if that bill is protested, then the bankers in Angoulême must draw up a detailed account of the expenses of protest and return; ’tis a duty which they owe to themselves. Joking apart, no account of the most romantic adventure could be more mildly improbable than this of the journey made by a bill. Behold a certain article in the Code of commerce authorizing the most ingenious pleasantries after Mascarille’s manner, and the interpretation thereof shall make apparent manifold atrocities lurking beneath the formidable word “legal.”
Master Doublon registered the protest and went himself with it to MM. Cointet Brothers. The firm had a standing account with their bailiff; he gave them six months’ credit; and the lynxes of Angoulême practically took a twelvemonth, though tall Cointet would say month by month to the lynxes’ jackal, “Do you want any money, Doublon?” Nor was this all. Doublon gave the influential house a rebate upon every transaction; it was the merest trifle, one franc fifty centimes on a protest, for instance.
Tall Cointet quietly sat himself down at his desk and took out a small sheet of paper with a thirty-five centime stamp upon it, chatting as he did so with Doublon as to the standing of some of the local tradesmen.
“Well, are you satisfied with young Gannerac?”
“He is not doing badly. Lord, a carrier drives a trade—”
“Drives a trade, yes; but, as a matter of fact, his expenses are a heavy pull on him; his wife spends a good deal, so they tell me—”
“Of his money?” asked Doublon, with a knowing look.
The lynx meanwhile had finished ruling his sheet of paper, and now proceeded to trace the ominous words at the head of the following account in bold characters:—
Account of Expenses of Protest and Return
To one bill for one thousand francs, bearing date of February the tenth, eighteen hundred
