them the bird in the hand is everything; icy when they have no need of
a man, they are wheedling and inclined to be gracious when they can
make him useful.

Du Tillet knew the enormous underground part played in the world by
such men as Werbrust and Gigonnet, commercial money-lenders in the
Rues Saint-Denis and Saint-Martin; by Palma, banker in the Faubourg
Poissonniere,--all of whom were closely connected with Gobseck. He
accordingly offered a cash security, and obtained an interest in the
affair, on condition that these gentlemen would use in their
commercial loans certain moneys he should place in their hands. By
this means he strengthened himself with a solid support on all sides.

Du Tillet accompanied Monsieur Clement Chardin des Lupeaulx to Germany
during the Hundred Days, and came back at the second Restoration,
having done more to increase his means of making a fortune than
augmented the fortune itself. He was now in the secret councils of the
sharpest speculators in Paris; he had secured the friendship of the
man with whom he had examined into the affair of the debts, and that
clever juggler had laid bare to him the secrets of legal and political
science. Du Tillet possessed one of those minds which understand at
half a word, and he completed his education during his travels in
Germany. On his return he found Madame Roguin faithful to him. As to
the notary, he longed for Ferdinand with as much impatience as his
wife did, for la belle Hollandaise had once more ruined him. Du Tillet
questioned the woman, but could find no outlay equal to the sum
dissipated. It was then that he discovered the secret which Sarah had
carefully concealed from him,--her mad passion for Maxime de Trailles,
whose earliest steps in a career of vice showed him for what he was,
one of those good-for-nothing members of the body politic who seem the