"Memento mori," I said, smilingly.
"No. Mind money. It means 'Always mind your own money.' It is the best advice I can give you, and the one you stand most in need of."
I thanked him, and took my leave: no more Mr. Parasite, but on the way to earn the title he had given me—that of a fool.
VII.
A BRILLIANT GAME.
If I had had a particle of good judgment or common sense, I should have taken the bills I had paid for at the bank to the solicitor who acted both for Siegfried and myself, should have authorised that gentleman to pay the twenty thousand florins Siegfried had lent me when I came into possession of my house, and I myself should have written two pleasant letters—one to Countess Diodora, thanking her for her great and disinterested kindness and hospitality, and the other to Siegfried, notifying him formally of what I had done, and, at the same time, telling him that my resolution was firm, and that no persuasion on his part would shake it. Then I should have thanked him for his friendship, and finally have taken myself off with all possible speed to Heligoland, Ostend, or some other remote watering-place. After an election campaign, or, as in my case, nearly two campaigns, such an invigorating of the system is very commendable.
All this I should have done as a man of good judgment, but, alas! I was not such a man—at any rate, no longer. My judgment had left me, and it would need a whole pathologico-psychological dissertation to explain how the process of inserting a rose-scion into a stock can, in a period of hardly an hour, convert a cool, sensible, and collected man into a stark raving madman.
For a lunatic I was—no doubt about that. Now it was I who wanted to play the game to the end, and to show to those five companions of mine which of us could "jump" best. An angel had come to warn me, and had given me a weapon against my adversaries; now I was bound to show her that I could make proper use of the weapon. There was already a sweet secret bond between us—her warning, and I was burning to find out the cause, the fountain-head, of that significant partiality shown to me. Why was the angel an angel? The question was all-important to me.
On arriving at home with the sheriff I found a letter from Siegfried, and on the envelope the inscription, "Ibi, ubi, cito, citissime. N.B. Dr. Cornelius Dumany, Esquire."