This threat produced the effect his promises had been unable to obtain. All Aristide's ardour was rekindled at the thought of the fortune to which his brother alluded. It seemed to him that he was at last let loose in the thick of the fray, authorised to slaughter right and left, but legally, and without causing too much commotion. Eugène gave him two hundred francs to enable him to wait till the end of the month. Then he remained wrapt in thought. "I'm thinking of changing my name," said he at length; "you ought to do the same. We should interfere with each other less." "As you like," answered Aristide quietly. "You need not trouble yourself about anything. I will attend to the necessary formalities. How would you like to call yourself by your wife's name Sicardot?" Aristide glanced up at the ceiling, repeating the name, and listening to the sound of the syllables. "Sicardot--Aristide Sicardot--no, on my word, it's clownish and has a suggestion of bankruptcy about it." "Think of something better then," said Eugène. "I would prefer Sicard without the ot," resumed the other after a pause; "Aristide Sicard--that isn't bad, is it? perhaps a bit jaunty--" He stood thinking a few moments longer, and then triumphantly exclaimed: "I've got it, I've found it at last! Saccard, Aristide Saccard! with a double c. Eh! there's money in such a name as that; it has a sound like the counting out of five franc pieces." Eugène was rather brutal in his jokes. He dismissed his brother, saying to him with a smile: "Yes, a name that will make you a convict or a millionaire." A few days later Aristide Saccard found himself at the Hôtel de Ville. He there learnt that his brother must have commanded considerable influence to get him appointed without the customary examinations.