The boy blushed. Cartaret had been abrupt and did not present the appearance of a possible purchaser.
“If you please,” urged Cartaret. “I may care to buy.”
Fourget gaped. The boy turned up his canvas—an execrable daub.
“I’ll buy that,” said Cartaret.
“Are you mad?” asked Fourget.
“Bring back that picture to M. Fourget in half an hour,” pursued the heedless American, “and he will give you for it two hundred francs that he will have lent me and that I shall have left with him.”
He pushed the stammering lad out of the shop and turned to Fourget.
“Are you drunk?” asked the dealer, changing the form of his suspicions.
“Fourget,” cried Cartaret, clapping his friend on the back, “I shall never be hungry again—never—never—never! Look at that.” He produced the precious cable-message. “That piece of paper will feed me all my life long. It will buy me houses, horses, motors, steamship-tickets. It looks like paper, Fourget.” He spread it under Fourget’s nose. “But it isn’t; it’s a dozen suits of clothes a year; it’s a watch-and-chain, a diamond scarf-pin (if I’d wear one!); it’s a yacht. It’s an oil-well, Fourget—and a godsend!”
Fourget took it in his blue-veined hands. His hands trembled.