alan Pujol,
of whom he had not a very good opinion.

The two friends made an engagement for the next day and Caesar
hurried to his hotel. He wrote to the Minister, telling him what the
fundamentals of Dupont de Sarthe's project were; and between his own
ideas and those Yarza had expounded to him, he was able to draw up a
complete enough plan.

"The Minister being a man who knows nothing about all this," thought
Caesar, "when he understands that the ideas I expound are those of the
celebrated Dupont de Sarthe, will find them wonderful."

RECQUILLART'S CLERK

After having written his letter and taken a little tea, he lay stretched
out on a divan, until they brought him word that a young man was asking
for Senor Perez Cuesta.

"Send him up."

Senor Puchol entered, a dark little man who wore a morning-coat and had
a hat with a flat brim edged with braid.

Caesar greeted him affably and made him sit down.

"But are you not Spanish?" Caesar asked him.

"Yes, I was born in Barcelona."

"I should have taken you for a Frenchman."

"In dress and everything else, I am a complete Parisian."

"This poor man is full of vanity," thought Caesar. "All the better." He
immediately began to explain the affair.

"Look," he said, "the whole matter is this: the Spanish Minister of
Finance, my chief, has dealings on a large scale with the Recquillart
bank; you know that, and so do I; but the Recquillarts, besides charging
an inflated commission, interfere in his buying and selling with so
little cleverness, that whenever he buys, it turns out that he bought
for more than the market price of the security, and whenever he sells,
he sells lower than the quotation. The Minister does not wish to break
off with the Recquillarts...."

"He can't, you meant to say," replied Puchol, in an insinuating manner.
"Since you know the situation..." responded Caesar.

"Oughtn't I to?"

"Since you know the whole situation," continued Caesar, "I will say that
he cannot indeed break off with the Recquillarts, but the Minister would
like to do business with somebody else, without passing under the yoke
of the chief."

"He ought to make arrangements with another broker here," said Puchol.

"Ah, certainly. I have brought some twenty thousand francs with that
object."

"Then there is no difficulty."

"But we need a go-between. The Minister doesn't care to turn to the
first banker at hand and explain all his combinations to him."

"That