"In any event," said he jauntily, "you have my five dollars. Au revoir, madam. Auf wiedersehn!" He buttoned Mr. Bramble's ulster close about his throat and gravely bowed himself out into the falling night.
In the meantime, Mr. Bramble had substituted two unmarked bills for those remaining in the possession of Thomas Trotter, and, with the return of Prince Waldemar, triumphant, M. Mirabeau arbitrarily confiscated the entire thirty dollars.
"These bills must be concealed at once," he explained. "Temporarily they are out of circulation. Do not give them another thought, my dear Trotter. And now, Monsieur Bookseller, we are in a proper frame of mind to discuss the beefsteak you have neglected to order."
"God bless my soul," cried Mr. Bramble in great dismay. His unceremonious departure an instant later was due to panic. Mrs. O'Leary had to be stopped before the tripe and tunny fish had gone too far. Moreover, he had forgotten to tell her that there would be two extra for dinner,—besides the extra sirloin.
On the following Monday, Thomas Trotter entered the service of Mrs. Millidew, and on the same day Stuyvesant Smith-Parvis returned to New York after a hasty and more or less unpremeditated visit to Atlantic City, where he experienced a trying half hour with the unreasonable Mr. Carpenter, who spoke feelingly of a personal loss and most unfeelingly of the British Foreign Office. Every nation in the world, he raged, has a foreign office; foreign offices are as plentiful as birds'-nests. But Tom Trotters were as scarce as hen's-teeth. He would never find another like him.
"And what's more," he interrupted himself to say, glowering at the shocked young man, "he's a gentleman, and that's something you ain't,—not in a million years."
"Ass!" said Mr. Smith-Parvis, under his breath.
"What's that?" roared the aggrieved one.
"Don't shout like that! People are beginning to stare at—"
"Thank the Lord I had sense enough to engage a private detective and not to call in the police, as you suggested. That would have been the limit. I've a notion to hunt that boy up and tell him the whole rotten story."