years of service. Now you know the pair of antagonists.

"During the first three months of a partnership dissolved four months
later in a bout of fisticuffs, Cerizet and Claparon bought up two
thousand francs' worth of bills bearing Maxime's signature (since
Maxime was his name), and filled a couple of letters to bursting with
judgments, appeals, orders of the court, distress-warrants,
application for stay of proceedings, and all the rest of it; to put it
briefly, they had bills for three thousand two hundred francs odd
centimes, for which they had given five hundred francs; the transfer
being made under private seal, with special power of attorney, to save
the expense of registration. Now it so happened at this juncture,
Maxime, being of ripe age, was seized with one of the fancies peculiar
to the man of fifty--"

"Antonia!" exclaimed La Palferine. "That Antonia whose fortune I made
by writing to ask for a toothbrush!"

"Her real name is Chocardelle," said Malaga, not over well pleased by
the fine-sounding pseudonym.

"The same," continued Desroches.

"It was the only mistake Maxime ever made in his life. But what would
you have, no vice is absolutely perfect?" put in Bixiou.

"Maxime had still to learn what sort of a life a man may be led into
by a girl of eighteen when she is minded to take a header from her
honest garret into a sumptuous carriage; it is a lesson that all
statesmen should take to heart. At this time, de Marsay had just been