“But that’s not what I’m talking about, youngster. Let’s take a drink, messieurs; it’s good stuff, at all events.”
“Tell us, Lampin, what you would have done to——”
“Ah! I’m a blade, I am; I would risk the job! But I write like a cat.”
“But what is it that you’d write?”
“That depends—sometimes one thing, sometimes another.—Look here, here’s a note that a friend entrusted to me; it is the proceeds of his father’s property, which is to be paid him here in Paris, because he means to enjoy himself with us.”
“What is it?”
“A note for twelve hundred francs, accepted by a famous banker of Paris. Oh! it’s good, anyone would discount it for you on the instant; my colleague knows a man who lives in the suburbs of Paris, and who proposed to give him rocks for his paper.—Well, my boy, make one like it, and you can get that discounted too.”
“What? What do you say? Counterfeit this note?”
“Oh, no, not counterfeit it, for instead of twelve hundred francs I would make it twelve thousand; it’s just an imitation. Here’s your health.”
“Why, you villain! that’s forgery!”