'Well, then, suppose we say, between friends, fifty francs?' 'Fifty francs! That is very little; besides, I do not know that I shall part with Cocotte at all.' 'Come, come; be reasonable. Sixty francs! Is it a bargain?' Jean still shook his head. 'Tempt him with the actual sight of the money,' confidentially suggested Madame Souday; 'that is the only way to strike a bargain with my husband.' Delessert preferred increasing his offer to this advice, and gradually advanced to 100 francs, without in the least softening Jean Souday's obduracy. The possessor of the assignats was fain, at last, to adopt Madame Souday's iterated counsel, and placed 120 paper francs before the owner of Cocotte. The husband and wife instantly, as silently, exchanged with each other, by the only electric telegraph then in use, the words: 'I thought so.' 'This is charming money, friend Delessert,' said Jean Souday; 'far more precious to an enlightened mind than the barbarous coin stamped with effigies of kings and queens of the _ancien régime_. It is very tempting; still, I do not think I can part with Cocotte at any price.' Poor Delessert ground his teeth with rage, but the expression of his anger would avail nothing; and, yielding to hard necessity, he at length, after much wrangling, became the purchaser of the old mare for 250 francs--in assignats. We give this as a specimen of the bargains effected by the owner of Les Près with his borrowed capital, and as affording a key to the bitter hatred he from that day cherished towards the notary, by whom he had, as he conceived, been so egregiously duped. Towards evening, he entered a wine-shop in the suburb of Robertsau, drank freely, and talked still more so, fatigue and vexation having rendered him both thirsty and bold. Destouches, he assured everybody that would listen to him, was a robber--a villain--a vampire blood-sucker, and he, Delessert, would be amply revenged on him some fine day. Had the loquacious orator been eulogising some one's extraordinary virtues, it is very probable that all he said would have been forgotten by the morrow, but the memories of men are more tenacious of slander and evil-speaking; and thus it happened that Delessert's vituperative and menacing eloquence on this occasion was thereafter reproduced against him with fatal power.