“At any rate,” Felix declared, “I am going to try.”
He took a pen, and, after trying a dozen times,
“How is this?” he asked, holding out a sheet of paper.
The commissary carefully compared the original with the copy.
“It is not perfect,” he murmured; “but at night, with the imagination excited by a great peril—Besides, we must risk something.”
“If I had a few hours to practise!”
“But you have not. Come, take up your pen, and write as well as you can, in that same hand, what I am going to tell you.”
And after a moment’s thought, he dictated as follows:
“All goes well. T. drawn into a quarrel, is to fight in the morning with swords. But our man, whom I cannot leave, refuses to go ahead, unless he is paid two thousand francs before the duel. I have not the amount. Please hand it to the bearer, who has orders to wait for you.”
The commissary, leaning over his secretary’s shoulder, was following his hand, and, the last word being written,