“I seldom sit up so late,” was my cautious reply; “but I must own I have seldom such a good excuse.”
“You hit it, boy; that was well and truly spoken. As a talker of the highest order of talk, I yield to no man in Europe. Do you remember Duvergier saying in the Chambre, as an apology for being late, 'I dined with DeMarsac'?”
“I cannot say I remember that.”
“How could you? You were an infant at the time.” Away he went after this into reminiscences of political life,—how deep he was in that Spanish marriage question, and how it caused a breach,—an irreparable breach between Guizot and himself, when that woman, “you know whom I mean, let out the secret to Bulwer. Of course I ought not to have confided it to her. I know all that as well as you can tell it me, but who is wise, who is guarded, who is self-possessed at all times?”
Not entirely trustful of what he was telling me, and little interested in it besides, I brought him back to Fiume, and to the business that was now about to be confided to me.
“Ah, very true; you want your instructions. You shall have them, not that you 'll need them long, mon cher. Six months—what am I saying?—three will see it all up with; Hodnig and Oppovich.”
“What do you mean?” cried I, eagerly.
“Just simply what I say.”
It was not very easy for me to follow him here, but I could gather, amidst a confused mass of self-glorification, prediction, and lamentation over warnings disregarded, and such like, that the great Jew house of “Nathanheimer” of Paris was the real head of the firm of Hodnig and Oppovich.
“The Nathanheimers own all Europe and a very considerable share of America,” burst he out “You hear of a great wine-house at Xeres, or a great corn-merchant at Odessa, or a great tallow-exporter at Riga. It's all Nathanheimer! If a man prospers and shows that he has skill in business, they 'll stand by him, even to millions. If he blunders, they sweep him away, as I brush away that cork. There must be no failures with them. That's their creed.”