“Yes—since the prince insisted!” and he drew a little memorandum book from his pocket.
Selden could scarcely repress a smile. There is nothing more characteristic of the confirmed borrower than insistence on keeping meticulous accounts. To enter the amount in a book is almost like placing it in a bank. It proves how conscientious one is.
“Please check it over,” suggested the baron.
Davis did so.
“It’s just as I thought,” he said. “You’ve given me ten thousand francs too much.”
The prince got out his own memorandum book, monogrammed in gold on the back, turned over the pages till he found the right one, and compared the accounts.
“Ah, see,” he said; “you forgot to make this entry on the sixteenth—ten thousand francs.”
“Please make it now,” said the baron, “and mark the amount paid, after verifying the sum in the envelope.”
Davis, his face redder than ever, made the entry, then broke open the envelope and drew out a packet of thousand-franc notes—at least fifty or sixty of them—ran through them with shaking fingers, nodded, stuffed them into his pocket and wrote Paid in large letters across the memorandum.
“It would be as well to add the date,” said the baron.