te amicably. I
agreed to dispose of the receipt from the Mont de Piete to M. Mauruss
Mosenstein for the sum of two hundred francs, and for another hundred
I would indicate to him the banking house where his precious
son-in-law had deposited the half-million francs obtained for the
emeralds. This latter information I would indeed have offered him
gratuitously had he but known with what immense pleasure I thus put a
spoke in that knavish Marquis's wheel of fortune.

The worthy Israelite further agreed to pay me an annuity of two
hundred francs so long as I kept silent upon the entire subject of
Mme. la Marquise's first husband and of M. le Marquis's role in the
mysterious affair of the Rue Daunou. For thus was the affair classed
amongst the police records. No one outside the chief actors of the
drama and M. le Juge d'Instruction ever knew the true history of how a
dashing young cavalry officer came to be assaulted and left to starve
for three days in the humble apartment of an attorney-at-law of
undisputed repute. And no one outside the private bureau of M. le Juge
d'Instruction ever knew what it cost the wealthy M. Mosenstein to have
the whole affair "classed" and hushed up.

As for me, I had three hundred francs as payment for work which I had
risked my neck and my reputation to accomplish. Three hundred instead
of the hundred thousand which I had so richly deserved: that, and a
paltry two hundred francs a year, which was to cease the moment that
as much as a rumour of the whole affair was breathed in public. As if
I could help people talking!

But M. le Marquis did not enjoy the fruits of his villainy, and I had
again the satisfaction of seeing him gnaw his finger-nails with rage
whenever the lovely Rachel paid for his dinner at fashionable
restaurants. Indeed Papa Mosenstein tightened the strings of his
money-bags even more securely than he had done in the past. Under
threats of prosecution for theft and I know not what, he forced his
son-in-law to disgorge that half-million which he had so pleasantly
tucked away in the banking house of Raynal Freres, and I was indeed
thankful that prudence had, on that memorable morning, suggested to me
the advisability of dogging the Marquis's footsteps. I doubt not but
what he knew whence had come the thunderbolt which had crushed his
last hopes of an independent fortune, and no doubt too he does not
cherish feelings of good will towards me.

But this eventuality leaves me col