deal with a score of varieties of savages--Illinois and Hurons,
who live on the proceed of their social hunting. You are a hunter

of millions; you set your snares; you use lures and nets; there
are many ways of hunting. Some hunt heiresses, others a legacy;

some fish for souls, yet others sell their clients, bound hand
and foot. Every one who comes back from the chase with his game-

bag well filled meets with a warm welcome in good society. In
justice to this hospitable part of the world, it must be said

that you have to do with the most easy and good-natured of great
cities. If the proud aristocracies of the rest of Europe refuse

admittance among their ranks to a disreputable millionaire, Paris
stretches out a hand to him, goes to his banquets, eats his

dinners, and hobnobs with his infamy."
"But where is such a girl to be found?" asked Eugene.

"Under your eyes; she is yours already."
"Mlle. Victorine?"

"Precisely."
"And what was that you said?"

"She is in love with you already, your little Baronne de
Rastignac!"

"She has not a penny," Eugene continued, much mystified.
"Ah! now we are coming to it! Just another word or two, and it

will all be clear enough. Her father, Taillefer, is an old
scoundrel; it is said that he murdered one of his friends at the

time of the Revolution. He is one of your comedians that sets up
to have opinions of his own. He is a banker--senior partner in

the house of Frederic Taillefer and Company. He has one son, and
means to leave all he has to the boy, to the prejudice of

Victorine. For my part, I don't like to see injustice of this
sort. I am like Don Quixote, I have a fancy for defending the

weak against the strong. If it should please God to take that
youth away from him, Taillefer would have only his daughter left;

he would want to leave his money to some one or other; an absurd
notion, but it is only human nature, and he is not likely to have

any more children, as I know. Victorine is gentle and amiable;
she will soon twist her father round her fingers, and set his

head spinning like a German top by plying him with sentiment! She
will be too much touched by your devotion to forget you; you will

marry her. I mean to play Providence for you, and Providence is
to do my will. I have a friend whom I have attached closely to

myself, a colonel in the Army of the Loire, who has just been
transferred into the garde royale. He has taken my advice and

turned ultra-royalist; he is not one of those fools who never
change their opinions. Of all pieces of advice, my cherub, I

would give you this--don't stick to your opinions any more than
to your words. If any one asks you for them, let him have them--

at a price. A man who prides himself on going in a straight line
through life is an idiot who believes in infallibility. There are

no such things as principles; there are only events, and there
are no laws but those of expediency: a man of talent accepts

events and the circumstances in which he finds himself, and turns
everything to his own ends. If laws and principles were fixed and

invariable, nations would not change them as readily as we change
our shirts. The individual is not obliged to be more particular

than the nation. A man whose services to France have been of the
very slightest is a fetich looked on with superstitious awe

because he has always seen everything in red; but he is good, at
the most, to be put into the Museum of Arts and Crafts, among the

automatic machines, and labeled La Fayette; while the prince at
whom everybody flings a stone, the man who despises humanity so

much that he spits as many oaths as he is asked for in the face
of humanity, saved France from being torn in pieces at the

Congress of Vienna; and they who should have given him laurels
fling mud at him. Oh! I know something of affairs, I can tell

you; I have the secrets of many men! Enough. When I find three
minds in agreement as to the application of a principle, I shall

have a fixed and immovable opinion--I shall have to wait a long
while first. In the Tribunals you will not find three judges of

the same opinion on a single point of law. To return to the man I
was telling you of. He would crucify Jesus Christ again, if I

bade him. At a word from his old chum Vautrin he will pick a
quarrel with a scamp that will not send so much as five francs to

his sister, poor girl, and" (here Vautrin rose to his feet and
stood like a fencing-master about to lunge)--"turn him off into

the dark!" he added.
"How frightful!" said Eugene. "You do not really mean it? M.

Vautrin, you are joking!"
"There! there! Keep cool!" said the other. "Don't behave like a

baby. But if you find any amusement in it, be indignant, flare
up! Say that I am a scoundrel, a rascal, a rogue, a bandit; but

do not call me a blackleg nor a spy! There, out with it, fire
away! I forgive you; it is quite natural at your age. I was like

that myself once. Only remember this, you will do worse things
yourself some day. You will flirt with some pretty woman and take

her money. You have thought of that, of course," said Vautrin,
"for how are you to succeed unless love is laid under

contribution? There are no two ways about virtue, my dear
student; it either is, or it is not. Talk of doing penance for

your sins! It is a nice system of business, when you pay for your
crime by an act of contrition! You seduce a woman that you may

set your foot on such and such a rung of the social ladder; you
sow dissension among the children of a family; you descend, in

short, to every base action that can be committed at home or
abroad, to gain your own ends for your own pleasure or your

profit; and can you imagine that these are acts of faith, hope,
or charity? How is it that a dandy, who in a night has robbed a

boy of half his fortune, gets only a couple of months in prison;
while a poor devil who steals a banknote for a thousand francs,

with aggravating circumstances, is condemned to penal servitude?
Those are your laws. Not a single provision but lands you in some

absurdity. That man with yellow gloves and a golden tongue
commits many a murder; he sheds no blood, but he drains his

victim's veins as surely; a desperado forces open a door with a
crowbar, dark deeds both of them! You yourself will do every one

of those things that I suggest to you to-day, bar the bloodshed.
Do you believe that there is any absolute standard in this world?

Despise mankind and find out the meshes that you can slip through
in the net of the Code. The secret of a great success for which

you are at a loss to account is a crime that has never been found
out, because it was properly executed."

"Silence, sir! I will not hear any more; you make me doubt
myself. At this moment my sentiments are all my science."

"Just as you please, my fine fellow; I did think you were so
weak-minded," said Vautrin, "I shall say no more about it. One

last word, however," and he looked hard at the student--"you have
my secret," he said.

"A young man who refuses your offer knows that he must forget
it."

"Quite right, quite right; I am glad to hear you say so. Somebody
else might not be so scrupulous, you see. Keep in mind what I

want to do for you. I will give you a fortnight. The offer is
still open."

"What a head of iron the man has!" said Eugene to himself, as he
watched Vautrin walk unconcernedly away with his cane under his

arm. "Yet Mme. de Beauseant said as much more gracefully; he has
only stated the case in cruder language. He would tear my heart