"That means the civic guard …"
"Eureka!"
"I don't know …"
"The excellent Pascal who knows no Greek …"
"Van Dam, the Greek consul? But he does not belong to the civic guard!"
"Who said anything to the contrary? O Pascal … lamb! It's Van Frans."
"And is that all you know?" asked a newcomer, De Zater, the man who was always gloved. "What old news! Here's something really new. Lucretia, the impregnable Lucretia …"
"Well, what about her?"
"… has ended up by imitating her little fool friends …"
"With whom?…"
"With her husband's new partner, the Señor Vera-Pinto, a Chilian, or Terra-Fuegian, or Patagonian; I don't rightly know which!"
"What! The imposter with whom Freddy Béjard is undertaking the transportation of emigrants to Argentina, and who proposed the cartridge transaction to him! Messieurs, doesn't this coincidence open up new horizons to you, as they say at the Palace?"
"You don't maintain that the husband is in connivance with his wife, do you? They detest each other too much for that!"
"Humph! Self-interest would bring them together …"
"And their downfall is thus doubly warded off. For I suppose you know that Papa Dobouziez is selling his share of the factory, and even his house … Hey, Tolmech, what's the quotation on metals?"
"What are you trumpeting there? Old Dobouziez,
