'I must be going,' said he hastily; 'I should have been at the Porte St. Martin by half-past one.'
'Salute the Jacobite Club, de ma part,' said De Vere, with an insulting laugh, 'and tell them to cut everybody's throat in Paris save old Lafitte's; he has promised to do a bill for me in the morning.'
'You 'll not need his kindness so soon,' replied Burke, 'if you are willing to take my advice. Forty thousand francs——'
'Would he make it sixty, think you?'
'Sixty!' said Burke, with animation; 'I'm not sure, but shall I say for sixty you 'll do it?'
'No, I don't mean that; I was only anxious to know if these confounded rigmaroles I have to copy sometimes could possibly interest any one to that amount.'
Burke tried to laugh, but the hollow chuckle sounded like the gulping of a smothering man.
'Laugh out!' said De Vere, whose voice became more and more indistinct as his courage became stronger; 'that muttering is so devilish like a spy, a rascally, low-bred——'
A heavy blow, a half-uttered cry, followed, and De Vere fell with a crash to the floor, his face and temples bathed with blood, while Burke, springing to the door, darted downstairs and gained the street before pursuit was thought of. A few of the less interested about the table assisted me to raise the fallen man, from whose nose and mouth the blood flowed freely. He was perfectly senseless, and evinced scarcely a sign of life as we carried him downstairs and placed him in a carriage.
'Where to?' said the coachman, as I stood beside the door.