"I was sick to-day, I suffered from neuralgia! The Minister of Finance called on me!--Baron Nathan came to get information from me!" Among all the pleasures experienced by this man, he valued feminine virtue occasionally purchased with gold as little in comparison with the virgin souls, honor and virtue that he often succeeded in humiliating, in bending before him like a reed, and snuffing out with his irony, whenever necessity placed at his mercy any of those puritanical beings who had passed sometimes with haughty brow before the millions of this man of money. It was then that the clothes-dealer took his revenge in all its hideousness. There was no pity to be expected from this fat, smiling and easy-going man. His fat fingers strangled more certainly than the lean hands of a usurer. Molina never pardoned. Ah! if this fellow went to see the minister, most assuredly he wanted a favor from him. But what? It was extraordinary, but before Vaudrey, Molina who could hold his own among rascals, found himself ill at ease. There was in the frank look of this _ninny_, as Molina the _Tumbler_ had one evening called him while talking politics, such direct honesty that the banker, accustomed as he was to dealings with sharks and intriguers, did not quite know how to open the question, nevertheless a very important matter was in hand. "A rich plum," thought Molina. A matter of railways, a concession to be gained. A matter of private interest, disguised under the swelling terms of the public welfare, the national needs. Millions were to be gained. Molina was charged with the duty of sounding the President of the Council and the Minister of Public Works. Two honest men. The _dodge_, as the _Tumbler_ said, was to make them swallow the affair under the guise of patriotism. A strategical railroad. The means of rapid locomotion in case of mobilization. With such high-sounding words, _strategy_, _frontier_, _safety_, they could carry a good many points. Unfortunately, Vaudrey was rather skittish on these particular questions, besides he was informed on the matter. He felt his flesh creep while Molina was speaking. Just before, on seeing the banker's card, the idea of the money of which the fat man was one of the incarnations, had suddenly dawned upon him as a hope. Who knows? By Molina's aid, he might, perhaps, free himself from anxiety about the Gochard bill of exchange!--But from the minister's first words, although the banker could not get to the point, intimidated as he was by Sulpice's honest look, it was clear that Vaudrey surmised some repugnant suggestions in the hesitating words of this man.