Voices were raised; an atrocious scandal began to be openly canvassed.

That poor fellow Vandeuvres was done for; he had spoiled his splendid hit with a piece of flat stupidity, an idiotic robbery, for he had commissioned Marechal, a shady bookmaker, to lay two thousand louis on his account against Lusignan, in order thereby to get back his thousand and odd openly wagered louis.

It was a miserable business, and it proved to be the last rift necessary to the utter breakup of his fortune.

The bookmaker being thus warned that the favorite would not win, had realized some sixty thousand francs over the horse.

Only Labordette, for lack of exact and detailed instructions, had just then gone to him to put two hundred louis on Nana, which the bookmaker, in his ignorance of the stroke actually intended, was still quoting at fifty to one against.