"Your joke is a little
personal," said he.
But Mascarin took no heed of his remark. "Listen to me," said he, "for
we have no time to waste, and do you," he added, turning to Paul, "pay
the greatest attention."
A moment of perfect silence ensued, broken only by the hum of voices in
the outer office.
"Marquis," said Mascarin, whose whole face blazed with a gleam of
conscious power, "twenty-five years ago I and my associates were young
and in a very different position. We were honest then, and all the
illusions of youth were in full force; we had faith and hope. We all
then tenanted a wretched garret in the Rue de la Harpe, and loved each
other like brothers."
"That was long, long ago," murmured Hortebise.
"Yes," rejoined Mascarin; "and yet the effluxion of times does not
hinder me from seeing things as they then were, and my heart aches as I
compare the hopes of those days with the realities of the present. Then,
Marquis, we were poor, miserably poor, and yet we all had vague hopes of
future greatness."
Croisenois endeavored to conceal a sneer; the story was not a very
interesting one.
"As I said before, each one of us anticipated a brilliant career.
Catenac had gained a prize by his 'Treatise on the Transfer of Real
Estate,' and Hortebise had written a pamphlet regarding which the great
Orfila had testified approval.
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