I nodded.
“And eight thousand with Mr Richards?”
“How do you know that, my dear M. Ménou?”
I must observe, by way of parenthesis, that I had lent these eight thousand dollars to Richards some five years previously; and although, on more than one occasion during that time, the money would have been of considerable use to me, I had been restrained from asking it back by my natural indolence and laziness of character, added to the nonsensical notion of generosity and devotion in friendship that I had picked out of waggon-loads of novels. Richards, I must observe, had never hinted at returning the money. I now felt rather vexed, I cannot exactly say why, at Ménou’s being acquainted with the fact of this debt, which I had fancied a secret between Richards and myself.
“And how do you know that, my dear M. Ménou?”
Ménou smiled at my question. “You forget,” said he, “that I am only just returned from New Orleans. One hears and learns many things when one opens one’s ears to the gossip of the haut-ton of the capital.”
“Ha, ha!” said I, a little sarcastically, and glancing at the man’s straw hat, and unbleached trousers and jacket; “Monsieur Ménou—the plain and unsophisticated Monsieur Ménou, also a haut-ton man?”
“My wife was a M——y; my grandfather was president of the Toulouse parliament,” replied the Creole quietly, to my somewhat impertinent remark.
I bowed. My suspicions concerning Indian blood were unfounded then.
“And have my proceedings and follies really served as tea-table talk to the New Orleans’ gossips?” said I.