“And you'd get hanged for your pains.”
A shrug of the shoulders was all the reply, and Longworth went on:—
“Some one once said, 'It was better economy in a state to teach people not to steal than to build jails for the thieves;' and so I would say to our rulers it would be cheaper to give us some of the things we ask for than to enact all the expensive measures that are taken to repress us.”
“What chance have I, then, of justice in such a country?” cried the foreigner, passionately.
“Better than in any land of Europe. Indeed I will go further, and say it is the one land in Europe where corruption is impossible on the seat of judgment. If you make out your claim, as fully as you detailed it to me, if evidence will sustain your allegations, your flag will as certainly wave over that high tower yonder as that decanter stands there.”
“Here's to la bonne chance,” said the other, filling a bumper and drinking it off.
“You will need to be very prudent, very circumspect: two things which I suspect will cost you some trouble,” said Longworth. “The very name you will have to go by will be a difficulty. To call yourself Bramleigh will be an open declaration of war; to write yourself Pracontal is an admission that you have no claim to the other appellation.”
“It was my mother's name. She was of a Provençal family, and the Pracontals were people of good blood.”
“But your father was always called Bramleigh?”
“My father, mon cher, had fifty aliases; he was Louis Lagrange under the Empire, Victor Cassagnac at the Restoration, Carlo Salvi when sentenced to the galleys at Naples, Niccolo Baldassare when he shot the Austrian colonel at Capua, and I believe when he was last heard of, the captain of a slaver, he was called, for shortness' sake, 'Brutto,' for he was not personally attractive.”