“In six months,” said Cerizet, “you’ll have married Celeste and got your foot into the stirrup. You are lucky, you are, not to have sat, like me, in the prisoners’ dock. I’ve been there twice: once in 1825, for ‘subversive articles’ which I never wrote, and the second time for receiving the profits of a joint-stock company which had slipped through my fingers! Come, let’s warm this thing up! Sac-a-papier! Dutocq and I are sorely in need of that twenty-five thousand francs. Good courage, old fellow!” he added, holding out his hand to Theodose, and making the grasp a test of faithfulness. The Provencal gave Cerizet his right hand, pressing the other’s hand warmly:-- “My good fellow,” he said, “be very sure that in whatever position I may find myself I shall never forget that from which you have drawn me by putting me in the saddle here. I’m simply your bait; but you are giving me the best part of the catch, and I should be more infamous than a galley-slave who turns policeman if I didn’t play fair.” As soon as the door was closed, Cerizet peeped through the key-hole, trying to catch sight of la Peyrade’s face. But the Provencal had turned back to meet Thuillier, and his distrustful associate could not detect the expression of his countenance. That expression was neither disgust nor annoyance, it was simply joy, appearing on a face that now seemed freed. Theodose saw the means of success approaching him, and he flattered himself that the day would come when he might get rid of his ignoble associates, to whom he owed everything. Poverty has unfathomable depths, especially in Paris, slimy bottoms, from which, when a drowned man rises to the surface of the water, he brings with him filth and impurity clinging to his clothes, or to his person. Cerizet, the once opulent friend and protector of Theodose, was the muddy mire still clinging to the Provencal, and the former manager of the joint-stock company saw very plainly that his tool wanted to brush himself on entering a sphere where decent clothing was a necessity. “Well, my dear Theodose,” began Thuillier, “we have hoped to see you every day this week, and every evening we find our hopes deceived. As this is our Sunday for a dinner, my sister and my wife have sent me here to beg you to come to us.” “I have been so busy,” said Theodose, “that I have not had two minutes to give to any one, not even to you, whom I count among my friends, and with whom I have wished to talk about--” “What? have you really been thinking seriously over what you said to me?” cried Thuillier, interrupting him.