back here, and gave a letter for the Comtesse de Restaud to that
noodle of a Christophe, who showed us the address; there was a
receipted bill inside it. It is clear that it was an urgent matter if
the Countess also went herself to the old money lender. Father Goriot
has financed her handsomely. There is no need to tack a tale together;
the thing is self-evident. So that shows you, sir student, that all
the time your Countess was smiling, dancing, flirting, swaying her
peach-flower crowned head, with her gown gathered into her hand, her
slippers were pinching her, as they say; she was thinking of her
protested bills, or her lover's protested bills."

"You have made me wild to know the truth," cried Eugene; "I will go to
call on Mme. de Restaud to-morrow."

"Yes," echoed Poiret; "you must go and call on Mme. de Restaud."

"And perhaps you will find Father Goriot there, who will take payment
for the assistance he politely rendered."

Eugene looked disgusted. "Why, then, this Paris of yours is a slough."

"And an uncommonly queer slough, too," replied Vautrin. "The mud
splashes you as you drive through it in your carriage--you are a
respectable person; you go afoot and are splashed--you are a
scoundrel. You are so unlucky as to walk off with something or other
belonging to somebody else, and they exhibit you as a curiosity in the
Place du Palais-de-Justice; you steal a million, and you are pointed
out in every salon as a model of virtue. And you pay thirty millions
for the police and the courts of justice, for the maintenance of law
and order! A pretty slate of things it is!"