"I don't see where I am to get the four thousand francs I save
honestly and invest every year, after you have cut up and sold Les
Aigues," said Sibilet, shortly. "Monsieur Gaubertin has made me many
fine promises; but the crisis is coming on; there will be fighting,
surely. Promising before victory and keeping a promise after it are
two very different things."

"I will talk to him about it," replied Rigou, imperturbably. "Meantime
this is what I should say to you if I were in his place: 'For the last
five years you have taken Monsieur Rigou four thousand francs a year,
and that worthy man gives you seven and a half per cent; which makes
your property in his hands at this moment over twenty-seven thousand
francs, as you have not drawn the interest. But there exists a private
signed agreement between you and Rigou, and the Shopman will dismiss
his steward whenever the Abbe Brossette lays that document before his
eyes; the abbe will be able to do so after receiving an anonymous
letter which will inform him of your double-dealing. You would
therefore do better for yourself by keeping well with us instead of
clamoring for your pay in advance,--all the more because Monsieur
Rigou, who is not legally bound to give you seven and a half per cent
and the interest on your interest, will make you in court a legal
tender of your twenty thousand francs, and you will not be able to
touch that money until your suit, prolonged by legal trickery, shall
be decided by the court at Ville-aux-Fayes. But if you act wisely you
will find that when Monsieur Rigou gets possession of your pavilion at
Les Aigues, you will have very nearly thirty thousand francs in his
hands and thirty thousand more which the said Rigou may entrust to
you,--which will be all the more advantageous to you then because the
peasantry will have flung them themselves upon the estate of Les
Aigues, divided into small lots like the poverty of the world.' That's