"Over-cautious?"
"Why, yes—why, yes. Wherefore this reserve? Why should you pretend not to understand? Don't you see," he added, with a cunning leer, "that I can make these medals as perfectly as they can at the Hôtel de la Monnaie, our French Mint?"
"So I see," said Jack.
A faint light began to dawn upon Harry Girdwood—not too soon, the reader will say.
"It is rather a dangerous pastime, Mr. Lenoir, this medalling fancy of yours," he said.
"No," said Lenoir, pointedly, "the danger is not there; the danger of this pastime, as you call it, is in disposing of my beautiful medals."
"Dear me, sir," said Mr. Mole. "Do you sell them?"
"Yes."
"How much?"
"The five-franc pieces two francs and a half," replied Lenoir, "and so on throughout until we get up to the louis, the twenty-franc pieces; those I can do for seven francs. You can pass them without risk."