"Well! my dear colleague," he said, "I have come to tell you some excellent news."
"Humph!" Laffitte responded, with that half--scornful manner peculiar to him, together with some of those mental endowments which he appeared to have borrowed from his friend Béranger. "Humph I what is it?"
"The Ordinances are withdrawn," said M. d'Argout.
"Ah!" remarked Laffitte with indifference.
"Ah!" the banker again remarked, without even inquiring their names.
"Is that how you receive such news?" M. d'Argout said, with some show of disappointment.
"No importance! Now!" repeated M. d'Argout.
"Yes," said Laffitte; "you are twenty-four hours too late with it, my good friend."
"But it seems to me that the interest remains the same."
"Quite possibly. Only the situation has changed in the last twenty-four hours!"
The salon door again opened at that moment. It was not, however, a negotiator this time, but a man of the people. He was in his working blouse; his beard was long and his head bound up in a bloodstained handkerchief; he held a rifle in his hand.
"Pardon, Monsieur Laffitte," he said, as he clashed his gun on the parquetry floor, "there is a rumour that they are negotiating through you with Charles X."
"Yes," said Laffitte, "and you do not want any negotiations, is that it, my friend?"
"We want no more Bourbons and no more Jesuits!" was the cry being shouted in the antechambers.
This cry was taken up even in the street outside.
"You see and hear for yourself?" said M. Laffitte.
"I must confess," he replied, "that it is not."
"Then you will plainly see that I cannot answer you, since any reply I made would lead to nothing!"
"But, if I returned with an official authorisation," urged M. d'Argout, anxious to sound the situation from every side.
"Ah!" said M. Laffitte, "we will cross that bridge when we come to it!"
"All is lost, my dear Baron!" the future Director of the Bank replied, with a sigh.
"But suppose a final effort were made to force M. de Mortemart upon Paris?"
"Why, in desperate cases any means are worth trying."
"That devil of an Oudard is a long time bringing me the duke's answer," Laffitte murmured impatiently.
"Perhaps," replied Béranger, "the duke is somewhat long in giving it him...."