Capìtolo 70

Place du Murier is full of people; so that though Doublon was careful
to stand and chat at the back door with Marion and Kolb, the news of
the protest was known all over the business world of Angouleme that
evening. Tall Cointet had enjoined it upon Master Doublon to show the
Sechards the greatest consideration; but when all was said and done,
could the bailiff's hypocritical regard for appearances save Eve and
David from the disgrace of a suspension of payment? Let each judge for
himself. A tolerably long digression of this kind will seem all too
short; and ninety out of every hundred readers shall seize with
avidity upon details that possess all the piquancy of novelty, thus
establishing yet once again the trust of the well-known axiom, that
there is nothing so little known as that which everybody is supposed
to know--the Law of the Land, to wit.

And of a truth, for the immense majority of Frenchmen, a minute
description of some part of the machinery of banking will be as