y a franc of them--damned swindlers and Jew
money-lenders!' was the cool reply.

'Might not some scrupulous moralist hint there was something blackguard
in that?' said Burke, with slow and distinct articulation.

'What!' replied De Vere; 'do you come here to tutor me--a low-bred
horse-jockey, a spy? Take off your hands, sir, or I'll alarm the room;
let loose my collar!'

'Come, come, my lord, we 're both in fault,' said Burke, smothering his
passion with a terrible effort; 'we of all men must not quarrel. Play is
to us the air we breathe, the light we live in. Give me your hand.'

'Allow me to draw on my glove first,' said De Vere, in a tone of
incomparable insolence.

'Champagne here!' said Burke to the waiter as he passed, and for some
minutes neither spoke.

The clock chimed a quarter to two, and Burke started to his feet.

'I must be going,' said he hastily; 'I should have been at the Porte St.
Martin by half-past one.'

'Salute the Jacobite Club, _de ma part_,' said De Vere, with an
insulting laugh, 'and tell them to cut everybody's throat in Paris save
old Lafitte's; he has promised to do a bill for me in the morning.'

'You 'll not need his kindness so soon,' replied Burke, 'if you are
willing to take my advice. Forty thousand francs----'

'Would he make it sixty, think you?'

'Sixty!' said Burke, with animation; 'I'm not sure, but shall I say for
sixty you 'll do it?'

'No, I don't mean that; I was only anxious to know if these confounded
rigmaroles I have to copy sometimes could possibly interest any one to
that amount.'

Burke tried to laugh, but the hollow chuckle sounded like the gulping of
a smothering man.

'Laugh out!' said De Vere, whose voice became more and more indistinct
as his courage became stronger; 'that muttering is so devilish like a
spy, a rascally, low-bred----'

A heavy blow, a half-uttered cry, followed, and De Vere fell with a
crash to the floor, his face and temples bathed with blood, while Burke,
springing to the door, darted downstairs and gained the street before
pursuit was thought of. A few of the less interested about the table
assisted me to raise the fallen man, from whose nose and mouth the blood
flowed freely. He was perfectly senseless, and evinced scarcely a sign
of life as we carried him downstairs and placed him in a carriage.

'Where to?' said the coachman, as I stood beside the door.

'I hesitated for a second, and then said, 'No. 4 Place Vendome.'