cket, "even here are the means of wealth and fortune
to both of us, if I could rely on you for the requisite energy and
courage to play your part."

"I have at least had courage to share your fortunes," said I, half
angrily; "and even that much might exempt me from the reproach of
cowardice."

Not heeding my taunt in the slightest, he resumed his speech with slow
and deliberate words:--

"I found this paper last night by a mere accident, when looking over
some old letters; but, unfortunately, it is not accompanied by any other
document which could aid us, though I have searched closely to discover
such."

So often had it been my fate to hear him hold forth on similar
themes--on incidents which lacked but little, the veriest trifle, to
lead to fortune--that I confess I paid slight attention to his words,
and scarcely heard him as he went on describing how he had chanced upon
his present discovery, when he suddenly startled me by saying,--

"And yet, even now, if you were of the stuff to dare it, there is
wherewithal in that letter to make you a great man, and both of us rich
ones."

Seeing that he had at least secured my attention, he went on:--

"You remember the first time we ever met, Gervois, and the evening of
our arrival at Hamburg. Well, on that same night there occurred to me
the thought of making your fortune and my own; and when I shall have
explained to you how, you will probably look less incredulous than you
now do. You may remember that the first husband of Madame von Geysiger
was a rich merchant of Hamburg. Well, there chanced to be in his
employment a certain English clerk who conducted all his correspondence
with foreign countries,--a man of great business knowledge and strict
probity, and by whose means Von Geysiger once escaped the risk of total
bankruptcy. Full of gratitude for his services, Von Geysiger wished to
give him a partnership in the house; but however flattering the prospect
for one of humble means, he positively rejected the offer; and when
pressed for his reasons for so doing, at last owned that he could not
consistently pledge himself to adhere to the fortunes of his benefactor,
since he had in heart devoted his life to another object,--one for which
he then only labored to obtain means to prosecute. I do not believe that
the secret to which he alluded was divulged at the time, nor even for a
long while after, but at length it came out that this poor fellow had no
other aim in l