Granville's estate

"Are you joking, Sologne?"

Even Alred was taken aback by Sologne's sudden whimsical idea: "This is the ball that marks the official start of the Brumaire social season. Many nobles have received invitations. This invitation I don’t know how many people want it but can’t get it, but you want to sell it?”

"That's just right, the more people can't get it, the more people want it, the higher the price this invitation can be sold for."

"The more you talk, the more absurd you are. Your name is written on the invitation card. Who can you sell it to? Even if someone really bought it, when the people in the Viscount's mansion check the invitation card, the name does not match the person. , how can this be said?"

"There is no need to worry about this problem at all. On that occasion, as long as the person in charge of welcoming the guests sees a genuine invitation card, he will let the person holding it in—if they block the real guests, and the other party happens to be a distinguished person Otherwise, the entire Viscount's mansion will lose face. They can't bear the consequences, so they won't check whether the person holding the invitation is the one who was really invited."

When Sologne said this, it didn't look like he was joking, but he was really considering the feasibility of selling the invitation. Alrede looked at him incredulously, trying to dispel his crazy thoughts.

"Madam always knows who she invited. Even if someone can sneak in with your invitation, he must greet the master, right? You are going to let Madam see someone you don't know hold an invitation for you." Tie walked up to her?"

"That's what people who are willing to buy invitations from me will worry about. Some people will definitely think that even if they face the risk of being kicked out by Madam, it's better than being refused and unable to even enter at the threshold; besides, Madam is unlikely to embarrass others in front of so many people." Sologne said, putting the invitation back into the envelope: "Not everyone can resist the temptation to join the upper class, such people are comparable to you Much more imagined, such as the gentlemen who dreamed of being the lover of a noble lady, or the daughters of merchants who married poor noblemen with large dowries just to get a noble title-honestly, I I have always thought that businessmen like that are very stupid, they send their daughters to the bed of noble gentlemen and still feel complacent, and use their own money to enrich other people's fields, it is simply stupid."

This sounds a bit too much. If there is an absolute conservative justice standing here now, he will probably think that Sologne is a "potentially dangerous liberal who supports Napoleon", so he ordered the arrest on the spot. He is sent to prison.

Louis suddenly felt that it might be a good thing that Sologne didn't want to go to the Viscountess de Bourgogne's ball - with his toes, he knew that most of the guests invited by the noble Viscountess must be nobles. The gentleman showed a little bit of disdain for the aristocratic class at the ball, but the matter is serious!

"Mr. Sologne, I think it's better not to say such things casually. If spies from the police station hear this, you may be in trouble." Louis thought of the amiable lady, and felt that if she knew that her distant relatives were going to Treating her kindly like this may make her sad: "As for this invitation, if Viscountess de Bourgogne knows your thoughts, she will probably be very sad. The invitation was delivered to us!"

"Tsk, you don't have to worry about this, I know it myself. This invitation letter was specified for me, that is to say, Alrede himself has an invitation letter, so it's fine for him to go." Sologne said Said, while sealing the envelope and putting it away: "If you are interested, you can go with Alrede, he will naturally have a way to deal with Madam - believe me, when the time comes, the rich and powerful of the entire city of Paris will be able to fill up the Bourgogne mansion. Among so many people, the Vicomtesse de Bougogne would neither notice that he went nor that I did not go, and I was neither interested in this kind of ball nor able to wear it on that occasion. clothes."

When he heard Sologne say that he didn't have the corresponding clothes, Louis was stunned for a moment, but after looking around the humble residence, Louis had to admit that what Sologne said was probably true—after all, no one It is impossible to imagine the existence of luxurious gowns in the slums without being filled with stench and dust.

"Come on, Sologne, it's still too late to order clothes now, you just earned hundreds of louis from tea leaves!"

"But it took me several months to earn those hundreds of louis, Alred." Sologne's tone was an unquestionable denial: "For the cost of one louis, I can Ask a strong porter to sell me his life for two months, and bring me ten louis' profit; for a hundred louis, what can I get? To get those dudes who pretend to each other for an evening Friendship? Then I'll have to spend all my money and get ten servants, two carriages, and five or six horses, because they don't look at a man without a carriage."

"...Well, after all, it's an invitation for you, and you have the right to handle it yourself. If Madam asks, I'll just say that you and I went to the banquet separately. I don't know why you haven't arrived yet. That's it."

Alred, who couldn't say Sologne, had no choice but to shrug his shoulders and give up the idea of ​​persuading him.

"Let me intervene, Mr. Sologne," Louis asked, "this tea business of yours sounds so lucrative, can I ask for details? My father left me A deposit of [-] francs has been deposited in the Bank of France, and I am debating whether to withdraw it to buy a piece of land or to do a small business."

Sologne glanced at Louis in surprise, then at Alred.

"If you want to get a share of our last business, then you may be a little late, Mr. Farentin." Sologne said, walking to the old chest of drawers, from the pocket He took out a key and opened the lock on the drawer, and made a "please sit down" gesture to Louis and Alred, "You came just in time, Alred, I was going to tell you about our shipment There is not much left in that batch, but Mr. Bernard said that if the goods are the same and the price is the same, he will take as much as we have. Maybe we can consider buying from Indian merchants, although they are treacherous. , but the quality of the tea is okay.”

The only seats on the third floor are those two chairs and the old sofa on which the drunk Mary sat. The garter stockings on Mary's legs and the looming scenery under the petticoat; but if she is sitting on the sofa, the drunk Mary only needs to reach out and touch the person sitting on the other side of the sofa.

Noticing Louie's wandering eyes between the sofa and the chair, Mary gave him a wink and giggled.

"Come here, Mr. Gold Coin." She flicked her hair, and there was a faintly unique charm in her gestures, which proved that she did not just say that she was the top actress of the opera house: "You should Haven't tasted the taste of a woman yet? I know it at a glance, come to my sister, and my sister will teach you~"

"Mary, my friends are not those people, don't scare him." Alred pulled the two chairs apart helplessly, and then sat on the one close to Mary, letting Louis and Mary A little further away: "Louis, sit there and ignore her, she talks nonsense when she drinks."

Louis sat stiffly on the chair almost like a wooden man, not even daring to turn his head too far, for fear that he might accidentally see something he shouldn't see.When Sologne took out two ledgers from the drawer and handed one of them to him, he took it almost gratefully, half covered the ledgers in front of his eyes, and flipped through them.

"Alred and I ran into a tea merchant selling a batch of tea at a low price a few months ago, so we tried our best to raise 4000 francs to eat that batch." Sologne pointed to the ledger , and said to Louis, "That man lost all his money in the casino and owed tens of thousands of francs. If he couldn't get it out, he would have to go to court. In desperation, he sold the goods he just got at a low price. That’s right, there are more than [-] kilograms of tea leaves in total, and the average price is five francs per kilogram.”

Louis remembered that Alred once said that they met a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. In order to make up the principal of [-] francs, Alred took the risk of going to the casino and won [-] francs.

"I don't drink tea very much, and I don't know much about the varieties of tea." Louis pretended to know nothing, and asked Sologne: "But I still know the price of tea. Five francs per kilogram of tea is not very common. Is it the price? This is the price when it is sold in the store."

The corner of Sologne's mouth twitched, showing a shrewd conceit.

"Five francs per kilogram is indeed the price of ordinary tea, but if it was just that simple, I would not have done this business-about one-fifth of that batch of tea is high-end goods, and the price per kilogram can Up to 20 to 25 francs. I sell the tea to British merchants, who buy it from me and resell it to London, and those British nouveau riche who can't wait to drink a hundred kilograms of tea a year can spend two pounds-- That's fifty francs. The English drink tea as much as we French drink, and even more."