"Thus, as for myself," the marquis continued, giving up his military comparisons, "I am deep in the gold mines at present.... Well, you will perhaps think that I risked myself blindly in this.... Not at all.... The chance of relations brought me into touch with some of those worthy gentlemen, precisely at the Chambannes, and I can assure you that I made no bones about acting upon their particulars.... Certainly not!... And, by the way, I did not find their tips unremunerative...." "What, you trust those gentry?" the younger M. Raindal asked with disappointment. "Yet I have been assured that many of them are not very trustworthy...." "Who told you this?" "One of my friends, Johann Schleifmann, one of their co-religionists, and, I may add, one of the best of men!" "Your friend exaggerates, monsieur," the marquis said gently. "Of course, I would not trust them all.... There are some of them whom I shall not name and whom I am more afraid of than of the plague.... Nevertheless, take, for instance, to mention but one, M. Pums, the director of the Bank of Galicia. Here is a man who has been advising me for six months and without any cause for regret.... I could not swear that I do not lose every now and then ... but when I balance my accounts, I find that my operations result in profits, I may say important profits.... Please note also that this cost me neither trouble nor a proof of servility.... Pums has no desire save to oblige me.... He is not one of those viziers of high finance who make you pay for their advice at the rate of sixty humiliations to a hundred per cent.... My M. Pums is a novice! One can have him for a handshake." The marquis laughed at his own ingenious comparison. Then he went on. "As for you, Monsieur, of course you have nothing to do with such deviltries!" "No fear," Cyprien exclaimed. "I have invested the wretched twenty thousand francs which I had scraped sou by sou out of my poor salary in railway stock. This brings me about three per cent.... It is very little, I grant you, but it is safe and, with the help of my pension, allows me to make both ends meet.... I speculate! No, never in my life!... Then again, what would be the use? I don't need it!" The marquis fell to dreaming. He was seized with an impulse of democratic sympathy towards the fiery little official. The latter was too poor to cause the haughty nobleman to fear any unpleasant familiarity. The very distance that stood between them brought them together. He said suddenly in a sententious tone: "Who knows, perhaps you are wrong! There are at present opportunities for a man to make a fortune in mines ... and when I see rogues and fools who become rich over night and the next moment I meet an honest man like yourself who takes no advantage of the opportunity, I feel tempted to cry out to him: 'Go on, go ahead! do not lose this opportunity!... An opportunity which can be met but two or three times in the course of a century--why, surely it is worth it.'"