“And yet the Rue Quincampoix was so thronged yesterday, I was compelled to leave my coach, and bid my lackeys force a passage for me through the crowd,” urged the Signor. “Madame was there, and the Duc du Maine, and more peers of France than you would see at the council. There must be life in it! All the world cannot be dupes. And yet the shares have fallen even since this morning.”
“All the world are not likely to be on the winning side,” replied the Abbé, quietly, “or who would be left to pay the stakes? From whom do you suppose Monsieur Las makes his profits? You know he has bought the Hôtel Mazarin. You know he has bought Count de Tessé’s house, furniture, pictures, plate, and all, even to the English carriage-horses that his coachman does not know how to drive. Where do you suppose the money comes from? When a society of people are engaged in eating one another, it seems to me that the emptiest stomach has the best chance.”
His listener looked thoughtfully on his scorched, scarred fingers. It might be that he reflected in how many ways he had burnt them.
“What do you advise me to do?” he asked, after a pause, during which he had filled and emptied a goblet of the red wine that stood at his elbow.
“Realise,” was the answer. “Realise, and without delay. The game is like tennis, and must be played with the same precision. If your ball be not taken at the first rebound, its force is so deadened that your utmost skill falls short of cutting it over the net.”
The Abbé’s metaphor, drawn from that fashionable pastime which had been a favourite amusement of the late king, was not without its effect on his listener. Like a skilful practitioner, he suffered his advice to sink into the adept’s mind before he took advantage of its effects. In other sciences besides chemistry and cookery, it is well to let your ingredients simmer undisturbed in the crucible till they are thoroughly fused and amalgamated.
He wanted the Signor malleable, and nothing, he knew by experience, rendered Bartoletti so obliging as a conviction that he lacked means to provide for his self-indulgence. Like the general public, he had been tempted by the great Mississippi scheme, and had invested in its shares the small amount of ready money at his command. It was gradually dawning on him that his speculations would entail considerable loss—that loss he felt, and showed he felt, must be made good. This was the Abbé’s opportunity. He could offer his own price now for the co-operation of his friend.
“We are wasting time sadly,” said the visitor, after a pause. “Let us go to our studies at once,” and he led the way to an inner apartment, as though he had been host and teacher rather than visitor and disciple.
The Signor followed, obedient though unwilling, like a well-trained dog bid to heel by its master.
Malletort turned his cuffs back, seized a small pair of bellows, and blew a heap of powdered coal, mingled with other substances, into a deep violet glow.