"Ah, M. Danneris, I am glad to see you. Be seated."
To say how I became acquainted with the chatty little Frenchman who sat before me would be a difficult matter. The offer of a cigar, an exchange of newspapers at the reading room, a passing bon jour on the stairs, had ripened under his friendly gayety into a familiarity which had extended so far as to my passing more than one evening at his snug office in the Rue des Allumettes, where François Danneris, advocate, spun toils for litigious Flemish bourgeoises.
"My friend," he said, "you look ennuyé, triste, dull; you need change. What do you say to a scamper over the continent?"
"I have done scampering enough lately," I replied, "and moreover my funds——"
"Tiens, mon ami. Do not talk of money. It is my great happiness to offer you an opportunity to combine business with pleasure, and take a most delightful trip without the expenditure of a sou."
"You surprise me—and where?"
"To a beautiful manorial residence at the village of Kioske, twenty miles beyond Buda, on the banks of the Danube—one of the most romantic spots of eastern Europe."
"And the object?"
"To take temporary charge of the only son of the wealthy Baron von Dressdorf. Jules von Dressdorf," added the advocate in his bland, pleasant way, "is a boy of fifteen, who, after spending a year in an academy in England, has been placed in a pension in Brussels; but, hélas! an hereditary disease, which has developed itself more strongly of late, has determined his father to recall him immediately. Pericardiac, my dear sir—pericardiac; and it is most important that he should without delay seek the quiet of his native valley."
"The terms?"