“Oh, he was not wrong to dwell in golden dreams, my dear lady; only, as I have already said, each affair has a dark side and a bright one and Beausire has the misfortune to take the dark one; all he has to do is to shift.”
“If there is time, what must I do?” asked the bully.
“Suppose one thing,” said the gentleman; “that your conspiracy fails. Suppose that the accomplices of the masked man and the one in the brown cloak are arrested; we may suppose anything in these times—suppose they are doomed to death! Suppose—for Augeard and Bezenval have been acquitted, so that anything unlikely may come round nowadays—suppose that you are one of these accomplices; you have the halter round your neck, when—say what they like—a man always shows a little of the white feather about then——“
“Do have done, my lord! I entreat you, for I seem to feel the rope throttling me!”
“That is not astonishing as I am supposing it is round your neck! Suppose, then, that they say to you: ‘Poor old Beausire, this is your own fault. Not only might you have dodged this Old Bony who clutches you in his claws, but gain a thousand louis to buy the pretty cottage under the green trees where you long to live with ever-lovely Oliva and merry little Toussaint, with the balance of what was partly spent for the purchase of your homestead. You might live, as you said, like a squire, in high boots in the winter and easy shoes the rest of the year; while, instead of this delicious lookout, you have the Execution-place, planted with two or three one or two-armed trees, of which the highest holds out its ugly branch unto you. Faugh! my poor Captain Beausire, what a hideous prospect!'”
“But how am I to elude it—how make the thousand to ensure my peace and that of dear Nicole and little Toussaint?”
“Your good angel would say: ‘Why not apply to the Count of Cagliostro, a rich nobleman who is in town for his pleasure and who is weary of nothing to do. Go to him and tell him——“
“But I do not know where he lives! I did not even know he is in town; I did not know he was still alive!” protested Beausire.
“He lives ever. It is because you would not know these facts that he comes to you, my dear Beausire, so that you will have no excuse. You have merely to say to him: ‘Count, I know how fond you are of hearing the news. I have some fresh for you. The King’s brother is conspiring with Marquis Favras. I speak from full knowledge as I am the right-hand man of the marquis. The aim of the plot is to take the King away to Peronne. If your lordship likes to be amused, I will tell him step by step how the moves are played.’ Thereupon the count, who is a generous lord, would reply: ‘If you will really do this, Captain Beausire, as all laborers are worthy of their hire, I put aside twenty-four thousand livres for a charitable act; but I will balk myself in this whim, and you shall have them on the day when you come and tell me either that the King shall be taken off or Marquis Favras captured—in the same way as you are given these ten louis—not as hand-money or as an advance, or a loan, but as a pure gift.”
Like an actor rehearsing with the “properties,” Cagliostro pulled out the weighty purse, stuck in finger and thumb and with a dexterity bearing witness to his experience in such actions, whipped out just ten pieces, neither more nor less, which Beausire—we must do him justice—thrust out his hand with alacrity to receive.