“I undertook at the same time to answer to you for my claim. I named the place and hour: I am here to vindicate myself: everything is convenient for a settlement.”
“Bah! will you never learn my indifference to such gasconade? If you had struck me in the face, I would not fight you.”
“No; you would have procured an assassin to murder me, I expect.”
“Certainly I should. My life and reputation are of infinitely more importance than yours. Men of sense have to consider these things. Only fools argue with swords. What a miserable self-confession! You had better call yourself a fool at once.”
“Well, I’m not sure but you are right.”
“Then, if you see it, you are no fool. No more am I. If you admit that, you admit also that you are only withholding from me information which I can, with a little trouble, procure elsewhere. You really may as well tell me what you have done with M. Saint-Péray.”
“Perhaps I will tell you, then; but I should just as really like to be convinced of your reason for wishing to know.”
“For one thing, I am his agent to the lottery, and answerable to him for an investment which, in less than a week, is to bring us both certain fortune.”
“Holy Mother! You are there, are you? I thought, from the look of his face, that you had been painting it with moonshine.”
“You are very welcome to a share of the gilding. If you wish, for old friendship’s sake I will place you too in possession of the winning numbers.”