"Oh! I'm not ungrateful; you have enabled me to get this fine brick
chateau with the stone copings (which couldn't be built now for two
hundred thousand francs) and those farms and preserves and the park
and gardens and woods, all for two hundred and eighty thousand francs.
No, I'm not ungrateful; I'll give you ten per cent, twenty thousand
francs, for your services, and you can buy a sheriff's practice in
Nemours. I'll guarantee you a marriage with one of Cremiere's
daughters, the eldest."
"The one who talks piston!" cried Goupil.
"She'll have thirty thousand francs," replied Minoret. "Don't you see,
my dear boy, that you are cut out for a sheriff, just as I was to be a
post master? People should keep to their vocation."
"Very well, then," said Goupil, falling from the pinnacle of his
hopes; "here's a stamped cheque; write me an order for twenty thousand
francs; I want the money in hand at once."
Minoret had eighteen thousand francs by him at that moment of which
his wife knew nothing. He thought the best way to get rid of Goupil
was to sign the draft. The clerk, seeing the flush of seigniorial
fever on the face of the imbecile and colossal Machiavelli, threw him
an "au revoir," by way of farewell, accompanied with a glance which
would have made any one but an idiotic parvenu, lost in contemplation
of the magnificent chateau built in the style in vogue under Louis
XIII.
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