"I am not of those," replied I. "I understand him and appreciate his many able qualities."
From which it will be seen that I can lie as well as any man.
"The poor dear has been called to Paris, on his affairs. Not that I understand them. I have no head for affairs. Even my tailor cheats me—but what will you? He can cut a good coat, and one must forgive him. My father's hotel in the Champs Elysées is uninhabitable at the moment. The whitewashers!—and they sing so loud and so false, as whitewashers ever do. The poor man is desolated in an appartement in the Hôtel Bristol. I am all right. I have my own lodging—a mere bachelor kennel—where I hope to see you soon and often."
He threw his card on the table, rising to go, and timing his departure with that tact and grace which is only compassed by Frenchmen or Spaniards.
Scarcely had I regained my room, after duly admiring Alphonse Giraud's smart dog-cart, when the servant again appeared. The Baron Giraud had arrived to see the Vicomte, who happened to be out. The affairs of the Baron were urgent, and he desired to see me—was, indeed, awaiting me with impatience in Monsieur de Clericy's study.
Thither I hastened, and found the great financier in that state of perturbation and perspiration which the political crisis seemed to have rendered chronic. He was, however, sufficiently himself to remember that I was a paid dependent.
"How is this?" he cried. "I call to see the Vicomte on important affairs, and he is out."
"It is," I replied, "that the Vicomte de Clericy is not a man of affairs, but a gentleman of station and birth—that this is not an office, but a nobleman's private house."
And I suppose I looked towards the door, for the Baron gasped out something that might have been an apology, and looked redder in the face.
"But, my good sir," he whined distractedly, "it is a matter of the utmost gravity. It is a crisis in the money market. A turn of the wheel may make me a poor man. Where is the Vicomte? Where are my twenty million francs?"