erciless reasoning faculty that always seemed to go
to the bottom of things. There was something of the fell and tranquil
majesty of a tiger about him.

"I have come to cash this bill of exchange, sir," he said. Castanier
felt the tones of his voice thrill through every nerve with a violent
shock similar to that given by a discharge of electricity.

"The safe is closed," said Castanier.

"It is open," said the Englishman, looking round the counting-house.
"To-morrow is Sunday, and I cannot wait. The amount is for five hundred
thousand francs. You have the money there, and I must have it."

"But how did you come in, sir?"

The Englishman smiled. That smile frightened Castanier. No words could
have replied more fully nor more peremptorily than that scornful and
imperial curl of the stranger's lips. Castanier turned away, took up
fifty packets each containing ten thousand francs in bank-notes, and
held them out to the stranger, receiving in exchange for them a bill
accepted by the Baron de Nucingen. A sort of convulsive tremor ran
through him as he saw a red gleam in the stranger's eyes when they fell
on the forged signature on the letter of credit.

"It... it wants your signature..." stammered Castanier, handing back the
bill.

"Hand me your pen," answered the Englishman.

Castanier handed him the pen with which he had just committed forgery.
The stranger wrote _John Melmoth_, then he returned the slip of paper
and the pen to the cashier. Castanier looked at the handwriting,
noticing that it sloped from right to left in the Eastern fashion, and
Melmoth disappeared so noiselessly that when Castanier looked up again
an exclamation broke from him, partly because the man was no longer
there, partly because he felt a strange painful sensation such as our
imagination might take for an effect of poison.

The pen that Melmoth had handled sent the same sickening heat through
him that an emetic produces. But it seemed impossible to Castanier
that the Englishman should have guessed his crime. His inward qualms he
attributed to the palpitation of the heart that, according to received
ideas, was sure to follow at once on such a "turn" as the stranger had
given him.

"The devil take it; I am very stupid. Providence is watching over me;
for if that brute had come round to see my gentleman to-morrow, my goose
would have been cooked!" said Castanier, and he burned the unsuccessful
attempts at forgery in the stove.

He put th