“Well, my dear boy,” he replied familiarly, “I am taking care of your mother, and I shall return her to you young and handsome and perfectly well in health. Here is one of those rare cases in which physicians take an interest. Besides, through her mother, she is a compatriot of mine. You and your grandfather must for two weeks have the courage to keep away from Madame—?”
“The Baronne de Mergi.”
“Ah! if she is a baroness, you must be a baron,” remarked Halpersohn.
At that instant the theft was accomplished. While the doctor was looking at his sopped bread heavy with chocolate, Auguste snatched four notes and put them into his pocket, as if he were merely putting his hand there by accident.
“Yes, monsieur,” he replied, “I am a baron, and so is my grandfather; he was attorney-general under the Restoration.”
“You blush, young man; there’s no need to blush for being a poor baron; that’s common enough.”
“Who told you, monsieur, that we are poor?”
“Your grandfather told me he had spent the night in the Champs Elysees; and though I know no palace with half so fine a ceiling as that of the skies at two o’clock this morning, I assure you it was pretty cold in the palace where your grandfather passed the night. We don’t select the ‘Star’ inn from choice.”
“Has my grandfather been here this morning?” said Auguste, seizing the opportunity to get away. “I thank you, monsieur, and I will call again, if you will permit me, to ask for news of my mother.”
As soon as he was in the street the young baron took a cab to go as rapidly as he could to the sheriff’s office, where he paid his grandfather’s debt. The sheriff gave him the papers and a receipted bill of costs, and told one of his clerks to accompany the young man home and relieve the legal guardian of her functions.