have to pay two thousand five hundred francs more, won't take fifteen
hundred down, and my note for a thousand for two months! Those
vultures want it all. Who ever heard of being so stiff with a man in
business these eight years, and the father of a family?--making me run
the risk of losing everything, carriage and money too, if I can't find
before to-morrow night that miserable last thousand! Hue, Bichette!
They won't play that trick on the great coach offices, I'll warrant
you."

"Yes, that's it," said the rapin; "'your money or your strife.'"

"Well, you have only eight hundred now to get," remarked the count,
who considered this moan, addressed to Pere Leger, a sort of letter of
credit drawn upon himself.

"True," said Pierrotin. "Xi! xi! Rougeot!"

"You must have seen many fine ceilings in Venice," resumed the count,
addressing Schinner.

"I was too much in love to take any notice of what seemed to me then
mere trifles," replied Schinner. "But I was soon cured of that folly,
for it was in the Venetian states--in Dalmatia--that I received a
cruel lesson."

"Can it be told?" asked Georges. "I know Dalmatia very well."

"Well, if you have been there, you know that all the people at that
end of the Adriatic are pirates, rovers, corsairs retired from
business, as they haven't been hanged--"