“Well, certainly,” said Crofton, shutting up the miniature, “these are not the distinguishing traits of our friend here, whom I should call a hard-natured, stern, obstinate fellow, with great self-reliance, and no great trust of others.”
“I was just thinking,” said I, “that were I to come up with such a man as this, what chance would my poor, frail, yielding temperament have, in influencing the rugged granite of his nature? He 'd terrify me at once.”
“Not when your object was a good and generous one,” said Miss Crofton. “You might well enough be afraid to confront such a man as this if your aim was to overreach and deceive him; but bear in mind the fable of the man who had the courage to take the thorn out of the lion's paw. The operation, we are told, was a painful one, and there might have been an instant in which the patient felt disposed to eat his doctor; but, with all these perils, strong in a good purpose, the surgeon persevered, and by his skill and his courage made the king of the beasts his fast friend for life. The lesson is worth remembering.”
I was still pondering over this apophthegm, when Crofton aroused me by pushing across the table a great heap of gold. “This is all yours, Potts,” said he; “and remember that as you are now my agent, travelling for the house of Crofton and Co., that you journey at my cost.”
Of course I would not listen to this proposal, and, although urged by Miss Crofton with all a woman's tact and delicacy, I persisted so firmly in my refusal, that they were obliged to yield. I now had a hundred pounds all my own; and though the sum be not a very splendid one, I remember some French writer—I 'm not sure it is not Jules Janin—saying, “Any man who can put his hand into his pocket and find five Napoleons there, is rich;” and he certainly supports his theory with considerable sophistry and cleverness, mainly depending on the assumption that any of the reasonable daily necessities of life, even in a luxurious point of view, are attainable with such means. Now, although a hundred pounds would not very long supply resources for such a life, yet, as I am not a Frenchman, nor living in Paris, still less had I habits or tastes of a costly kind, I might very well eke out three months pleasantly on this sum, and in these three months what might not happen? In a “hundred days” the great Napoleon crushed the whole might of the Austrian empire, and secured an emperor's daughter for his bride; and in another “hundred days” he made the tour of France, from Cannes to Rochefort, and lost an empire by the way! Wonderful things might then be compassed within three months.
“What are you saying about three months, Potts?” asked Crofton, for unwittingly I had uttered these words aloud.
“I was observing,” said I, “that in three months from this day, we should arrange to meet somewhere. Where shall we say?”
“Geneva is very central; shall we name Geneva?”
“Oh, on no account Let our rendezvous be in Italy Let us say Rome.”
“Rome be it, then,” cried Crofton. “Now for another point: let us have a wager as to who first discovers the object of our search. I 'll bet you twenty Napoleons, Potts, to ten,—for as we are two to one, so should the wager be.”