"As you please! I ask it in the interest of Mrs. Simons. She is guardian of her minor daughter, and she must render account of her whole fortune."
"But that will arrange itself! I care for my interests as she does for hers. When she pays for her daughter is it a great misfortune? I have never regretted what I have disbursed for Photini. Here is the paper, the ink and the reeds. Be good enough to watch the composition of the letter. It concerns your head, too!"
I rose, abashed, and followed the ladies, who saw my confusion without knowing the cause. But a sudden inspiration made me suddenly retrace my steps. I said to the King: "Decidedly, you were right to refuse the receipt, and I was wrong in asking for it. You are wiser than I; youth is imprudent."
"What do you say?"
"You are right, I tell you. It is necessary to wait. Who knows if you will not experience a second defeat more terrible than the first. You are not as strong as at twenty years of age; you may fall a captive to the soldiers."
"I?"
"They will try you as a common malefactor; the magistrates will no longer fear you. In such circumstances a receipt for a hundred and fifteen thousand francs would be overwhelming proof. Give no weapons of justice to be turned against you. Perhaps Mrs. Simons or her heirs would join in a criminal suit to recover what had been taken from them. Never sign a receipt!"
He replied in thundering tones: "I will sign it! and two rather than one! I will sign all; as many as need signing. I will sign them always for anyone! Ah! the soldiers imagine that they will manage me easily, because once, chance, and their larger force gave them the advantage! I fall, living, into their hands, I, whose arm is proof against fatigue, and whose head is proof against bullets! I seat myself on a bench, before a judge, like a peasant who has stolen cabbages! Young man, you do not yet know Hadgi-Stavros! It would be easier to pluck up Parnassus and place it upon the summit of Taygète, than to tear me from my mountains, and place me on a court bench! Write for me, in Greek, Madame Simons' name! Good! Yours also!"
"It is not necessary, and——"
"Write! You know my name, and I am sure that you will not forget it. I wish to have yours, to hold as a souvenir."