Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/369

 Ursule, “just think of the delight you will be giving our dear Savinien.”

“But you are mad!” said the curé.

“No, my dear curé,” said the justice, “listen. The certificates of the national debt have as many series as there are letters in the alphabet; and each number bears the letter of its series; but the bonds of stock to bearer cannot have any letter at all, as they are in nobody’s name; and so what you see proves that, the day upon which the old man invested his money in the Funds, he made a note of his bond of fifteen thousand francs a year bearing the letter M—Minoret,—the numbers without letters of the three bonds to bearer, and those belonging to Ursule Mirouët, the number of which is 23,534, and which as you see, immediately follows that of the fifteen thousand franc bond. This coincidence proves that these numbers are those of five bonds obtained on the same day, and noted down by the old man in case of loss. I had advised him to put Ursule’s fortune in bonds to bearer, and he must have invested his own capital, that which he intended for Ursule and that which belonged to his ward, on the same day. I am going to Dionis’s to consult the inventory; and, if the number of the inscription he left in his own name is 23,533, letter M, then we may be sure that on that same day, through the office of the same exchange agent, he invested: primo, his capital in one bond; secundo, his savings in three bonds to bearer, numbered without any