We'll see where these
various talents and slaves united will land the enterprise."
"In a hospital or a ministry,--where all men ruined in body or mind
are apt to go," said Raoul, laughing.
"Where and when shall we invite them?"
"Here, five days hence."
"Tell me the sum you want," said Florine, simply.
"Well, the lawyer, du Tillet, and Raoul will each have to put up a
hundred thousand francs before they embark on the affair," replied
Blondet. "Then the paper can run eighteen months; about long enough
for a rise and fall in Paris."
Florine gave a little grimace of approval. The two friends jumped
into a cabriolet to go about collecting guests and pens, ideas and
self-interests.
Florine meantime sent for certain dealers in old furniture,
bric-a-brac, pictures, and jewels. These men entered her sanctuary and
took an inventory of every article, precisely as if Florine were dead.
She declared she would sell everything at public auction if they did
not offer her a proper price. She had had the luck to please, she said,
an English lord, and she wanted to get rid of all her property and
look poor, so that he might give her a fine house and furniture, fit
to rival the Rothschilds. But in spite of these persuasions and
subterfuges, all the dealers would offer her for a mass of belongings
worth a hundred and fifty thousand was seventy thousand. Florine
thereupon offered to deliver over everything in eight days for eighty
thousand,--"To take or leave," she said,--and the bargain was
concluded.
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