The gentleman drew out some coins hastily and selected a bunch from the basket.
'Here is a franc,' he said, 'I cannot wait for change,' and putting a coin into Ninette's hand he turned into the theatre.
Ninette ran towards me with her eyes gleaming; she held up the piece of money exultantly.
'Tiens, Anton!' she cried, and I saw that it was not a franc, as we had though at first, but a gold Napoleon.
I believe the good little boy and girl in the story-books would have immediately sought out the unfortunate gentleman and bid him rectify his mistake, generally receiving, so the legend runs, a far larger bonus as a reward of their integrity. I have never been a particularly good little boy, however, and I don't think it ever struck either Ninette or myself—perhaps we were not sufficiently speculative—that any other course was open to us than to profit by the mistake. Ninette began to consider how we were to spend it.
'Think of it, Anton, a whole gold louis. A louis,' said Ninette, counting laboriously, 'is twenty francs, a franc is twenty sous, Anton; how many sous are there in a louis? More than an hundred?'
But this piece of arithmetic was beyond me; I shook my head dubiously.
'What shall we buy first, Anton?' said Ninette, with sparkling eyes.
'You shall have new things, Anton, a pair of new shoes and an hat; and
I—'
But I had other things than clothes in my mind's eye; I interrupted her.
'Ninette, dear little Ninette,' I said coaxingly, 'remember the fiddle.'