“Shall I have to wait long?”
“Long enough for me to send to the bank.”
Then turning his back on the iron-founder, M. Fauvel said to his
cashier:
“Write and send as quickly as possible to the bank an order for three
hundred thousand francs. Let the messenger take a carriage.”
Prosper remained motionless.
“Do you hear me?” said the banker angrily.
The cashier trembled; he seemed as if trying to shake off a terrible
nightmare.
“It is useless to send,” he said in a measured tone; “we owe this
gentleman three hundred thousand francs, and we have less than one
hundred thousand in the bank.”