"Yes, but, on the other hand, the head clerk told me that three days ago he sold out an enormous amount of treasury bonds, and that--"
"So much the more reason for telling it."
"Your word and honor that you won't mention it?"
"On the heads of our children, we give it."
"And besides, let us remember what the great king Louis XIV. majestically said to the Doge of Venice before his assembled court:
"'When a secret's told a clerk, Its exposure he'll not burk!'"
"Good! there is Chalamel with his proverbs!"
"Proverbs are the wisdom of nations; it is on that account I require your secret."
"Come, none of your nonsense. I tell you the head clerk made me a promise to speak of it to no one."
"Yes; but he did not say that you should not tell it to every one?"
"It shall not go out of the office. Go on."
"He is dying with desire to tell us the secret."
"Well! the governor is about selling his notary's business. At this present moment, perhaps, it is done."
"Let us see, without charge, who charges himself with the charge which he discharges?"
"Tush! how insupportable Chalamel is with his riddles."
"Do you think I know to whom he sells it?"
"If he sells it, it is because, perhaps, he wishes to come out, give balls, routs, in the gay world. After all, there is something in it."
"I think so, indeed! The head clerk spoke of more than a million, including the value of the business."
"It is said that he has been gambling in stocks secretly with Commandant Robert, and that he has made much money."
"Not to speak of his living like a curmudgeon."
"But these misers, when once they begin to spend money, become as prodigal as they were once mean."
"Well, I agree with Chalamel; I think that now the governor is coming out."
"And he would be most stupendously in the wrong not to bury himself in voluptuousness, and not to plunge into the delights of Golconda, if he has the means; for, as the misty Ossian says, in the grotto of Fingal,
"'All-Ariel is it, yet not-arial, too, That he should still be right, Who roseate tapestry has in open view, And of his gold makes light.'"
"Yes, and the governor looks very much like a man who thinks of amusing himself. He has a face that might cause the devil to appear on earth."
"And then the cure, who boasts of his charity!"