Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/319

 are born to be an attorney as I was made to be a postmaster, and one must always follow one’s vocation.”

“Well then,” rejoined Goupil, his hopes shattered, “here are the stamps, sign acceptances for twenty thousand francs so that I can lay the money down.”

Minoret had the half-yearly eighteen thousand francs coming in from the bonds about which his wife did not know; in this way he thought he could get rid of Goupil, and signed. The head clerk, seeing the foolish and colossal Machiavel of the Rue des Bourgeois in a fit of seigniorial fever, threw him an “Au revoir!” as a farewell and a look which would have terrified any but a silly parvenu gazing from the height of a terrace upon the gardens and magnificent roofs of a château built in the style in vogue under Louis XIII.

“Are you not going to wait for me?” he cried, seeing Goupil walking off.

“You will meet me again in your path, papa!” replied the future attorney, thirsting for revenge and longing to find out the key of the riddle presented to his mind by the strange zigzags of fat Minoret’s behavior.