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On reaching the outer gates I turned to my venerable companion, and laying four twenty-franc pieces in her shriveled palm, I said: "Take these to the reverend mother for me, and ask that mass may be said in the chapel to-morrow for the repose of the soul of him whose name is written here."
When he was ten years old, his father, who had failed after some land speculations, and had turned all he had into money, tossed him up to the lintel of the doorway, kissed him, put a twenty-franc gold-piece into his little pocket, and went away to seek his fortune in Louisiana: the son never heard of him more.
Like most opulent men, he knew few poor people who wore their poverty with grace and dignity, and who did not snatch at a twenty-franc piece wherever they chanced to find it. "Ah, well, my dear Ferailleur," he said, kindly, "don't trouble yourself on this score. It's not at your request nor solely on your account that I make this sacrifice." "Oh!" "No; I give you my word of honor it isn't.
Others again declared, and called upon their honor to substantiate their story, that they had seen the army wagons containing the imperial treasure, one hundred millions, all in brand-new twenty-franc pieces, drive into the courtyard of the Prefecture.
The hole was full of rouleaux of twenty-franc pieces; on counting them, M. Lecoq found that there were nineteen thousand five hundred francs. The old justice's face betrayed an expression of profound grief. "That," thought he, "is the price of my poor Sauvresy's life." M. Lecoq found a small piece of paper, covered with figures, deposited with the gold; it seemed to be Robelot's accounts.
The joys of my escapade rose before me at the thought of the amount; joys that flitted about me like Macbeth's witches round their caldron; joys how alluring! how thrilling! how delicious! I became a deliberate rascal. I heeded neither my tingling ears nor the violent beating of my heart, but took out two twenty-franc pieces that I seem to see yet.
And then at last, much to the driver's satisfaction, we returned to the carriage, and were driven back to the Rue de Rivoli. I gave the man a twenty-franc piece; certainly the hour was unconscionably late. I bade good night, a reluctant good night, to Rosa at the entrance to her flat. "Dearest girl," I said, "let us go to England to-morrow.
It suddenly struck him how hard it was for a man of past thirty to be reduced to ask his mother, with a blush for a twenty-franc piece every now and then; and he muttered, as he scored the gravel with the ferule of his stick: "Christi, if I only had money!"
The smile over, he opened a book about the size of an atlas, dipped a pen in an inkstand, recorded my point of departure Cologne, and my point of arrival Paris; dried the inscription with a pinch of black sand filched from a saucer same old black sand used in the last century cut a section of the page with a pair of shears, tossed the coin in the air, listened to its ring on the desk with a satisfied look, slipped the whole twenty-franc piece into his pocket regular fare, fifteen francs, irregular swindle, five francs and handed me the billet.
"But what did he give in exchange for death?" I said. "Life," said that grim old man with a furtive chuckle. "It must have been a horrible life," I said. "That was not my affair," the proprietor said, lazily rattling together as he spoke a little pocketful of twenty-franc pieces.
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