MME. DUPONT. But they will make us bankrupt.
DUPONT [still smiling broadly] They can’t. They have nothing but my word.
MME. DUPONT. Luckily.
DUPONT. However, I haven’t refused the twentyfive thousand francs. Nor have I disputed the debt.
MME. DUPONT. What did you do then?
DUPONT. I wish you had been there. You would have laughed.
MME. DUPONT. Well?
DUPONT. I think I managed pretty well, though I say it who shouldn’t. If you had seen the long faces they pulled. Especially Mother Mairaut. [He bursts out laughing]. I should have liked a photograph of them. It would have cheered me in moments of depression. Ha! Ha! Ha!
MME. DUPONT [smiling] Tell me about it.
DUPONT. Well—I’d have given anything for a photograph. I said to them [solemnly] ‘Dear monsieur and dear madame, I admit that I promised to pay you to-day twentyfive thousand francs. Only I am not in a position to pay them.’ Explosion! Rage! Dignified reproaches! Insults! Smiling, I let the storm to pass by. Mother Mairaut sat there, her husband here, I here. All the time they were speaking I looked at them like this [grins]. As soon as they had finished I took up the tale again. ‘I do not deny the debt,’ said I, ’only I ask to be allowed to postpone the payment. And this time I am ready to sign an undertaking, a binding undertaking, to pay.’ Complete change of front! Smiles. Apologies. Oh, they were devilish civil. Called me a man of honor, etc., etc. I let them run on, still smiling. Then, in the midst of an almost religious silence, I sat down at my desk, I took pen and paper, I wrote, I blotted, so, taking my time about it. Madame Mairaut positively slobbered with delight. I tell you she slobbered. I handed her the paper. On it was written simply: ‘Good for the sum of twentyfive thousand francs to be paid out of the money to be left by Uncle Maréchal.’ Ha! Ha! Ha!