an answer. At last he heard a slow and heavy step on the tiled floor and the door was opened, but held by a hand and a foot.
“What do you wish?”
“Monsieur Caffie.”
“I am he. Who are you?”
“Doctor Saniel.”
“I have not sent for a doctor.”
“It is not as doctor that I am here, but as client.”
“This is not the hour when I receive clients.”
“But you are at home.”
“That is a fact!”
And Caffie, concluding to open the door, asked Saniel to enter, and then closed it.
“Come into my office.”
They were in a small room filled with papers that had only an old desk and three chairs for furniture; it communicated with the office of the business man, which was larger, but furnished with the same simplicity and strewn with scraps of paper that had a mouldy smell.
“My clerk is ill just now,” Caffie said, “and when I am alone I do not like to open the door.”
After giving this excuse he offered Saniel a chair, and, seating himself before his desk, lighted by a lamp from which he had taken the shade, he said:
“Doctor, I am ready to listen to you.”
He replaced the shade on the lamp.
Saniel made his request concisely, without the details that he had entered into with Glady. He owed three thousand francs to the upholsterer who had furnished his apartment, and as he could not pay immediately he was in danger of being prosecuted.
“Who is the upholsterer?” Caffie asked, while holding his left jaw with his right hand.
“Jardine, Boulevard Haussmann.”
“I know him. It is his trade to take back his furniture in this way, after three quarters of the sum has been paid, and he has become rich at it. How much money have you already paid of this ten thousand francs?”
“Including the interest and what I have paid in instalments, nearly twelve thousand francs.”
“And you still owe three thousand?”
“Yes.”
“That is nice.”
Caffie seemed full of admiration for this manner of proceeding.
“What guarantee have you to offer for this loan of three thousand francs?”
“No other than my present position, I confess, and above all, my future.”
At Caffie’s request he explained his plans and prospects for the future, while the business man, with his cheek resting on his hand, listened, and from time to time breathed a stifled sigh, a sort of groan.
“Hum! hum!” he said when Saniel finished his explanation. “You know, my dear friend, you know:
To fools alone the future’s smile unchangeable appears,
For Friday’s laughter Sunday’s sun may change to bitter tears.”
“It is Sunday with you, my dear sir.”
“But I am not at the end of my life nor at the end of my energy, and I assure you that my energy makes me capable of many things.”
“I do not doubt it; I know what energy can do. Tell a Greek who is dying of hunger to go to heaven and he will go
Graeculus esuriens in coelum, jusseris, ibit.”
“But I do not see that you have started for heaven.”
A smile of derision, accompanied by a grimace, crossed Caffies face. Before becoming the usurer of the Rue Sainte-Anne, whom every one called a rascal, he had been attorney in the country, deputy judge, and if unmerited evils had obliged him to resign and to hide the unpleasant circumstances in Paris, he never lost an opportunity to prove that by education he was far above his present position. Finding this new client a man of learning, he was glad to make quotations that he thought would make him worthy of consideration.
“It is, perhaps, because I am not Greek,” Saniel replied; “but I am an Auvergnat, and the men of my country have great physical strength.”
Caffie shook his head.
“My dear sir,” he said, “I might as well tell you frankly that I do not believe the thing can be done. I would do it myself willingly, because I read intelligence in your face, and resolution in your whole person, which inspire me with confidence in you; but I have no money to put into such speculations. I can only be, as usual, a go-between—that is to say, I can propose the loan to one of my clients, but I do not know one who would be contented with the guarantee of a future that is more or less uncertain. There are so many doctors in Paris who are in your position.”
Saniel rose.
“Are you going?” cried Caffie.
“But—”
“Sit down, my dear sir! It is no use to throw the handle after the axe. You make me a proposition, and I show you the difficulties in the way, but I do not say there is no way to extricate you from embarrassment. I must look around. I have known you only a few minutes; but it does not take long to appreciate a man like you, and, frankly, you inspire me with great interest.”
What did he wish? Saniel was not simple enough to be caught by words, nor was he a fop who accepts with gaping mouth all the compliments addressed to him. Why did he inspire a sudden interest in this man who had the reputation of pushing business matters to extremes? He would find out. In the mean time he would be on his guard.
“I thank you for your sympathy,” he said.
“I shall prove to you that it is real, and that it may become useful. You come to me because you want three thousand francs. I hope I may find them for you, and I promise to try, though it will be difficult, very difficult. They will make you secure for the present. But will they assure your future? that is, will they permit you to continue the important works of which you have spoken to me, and on which your future depends? No. Your struggles will soon begin again. And you must shake yourself clear from such cares in order to secure for yourself the liberty that is indispensable if you wish to advance rapidly. And to obtain this freedom from cares and this liberty, I see only one way—you must marry.”
CHAPTER IV. ‘TWIXT THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
Saniel, who was on his guard and expected some sort of roguery from this man, had not foreseen that these expressions
