If I can continue my present course, I shall be substitute attorney-general, possibly attorney-general, in three years.

I offer you to-day the offices of a devoted friendship, which will serve you hereafter most assuredly, if only to replace you in a honorable position.

Here are my conditions--" "Conditions!" exclaimed Cerizet.
"In ten minutes I will bring you twenty-five thousand francs if you return to me all the notes which you have against me." "But Dutocq?
and Claparon ?" said Cerizet.
"Leave them in the lurch!" replied Theodose, with his lips at Cerizet's ear.
"That's a pretty thing to say!" cried Cerizet.

"And so you have invented this little game of hocus-pocus because you hold in your fingers fifteen thousand francs that don't belong to you!" "But I've added ten thousand francs to them.

Besides, you and I know each other." "If you are able to get ten thousand francs out of your bourgeois you can surely get fifteen," said Cerizet.