ecise information on that subject
from Baron Hemerlingue, the banker who negotiated the last Tunisian
loan. He knows some fine stories about this Nabob. Just fancy--"

And the stream of calumny began to flow. For fifteen years Jansoulet
had plundered the late bey shamefully. They mentioned the names of
contractors and cited divers swindles characterized by admirable
coolness and effrontery; for instance, the story of a musical
frigate--yes, it really played tunes--intended as a dining-room
ornament, which he bought for two hundred thousand francs and sold
again for ten millions; a throne sold to the bey for three millions,
whereas the bill could be seen on the books of a house furnisher of
Faubourg Saint-Honore, and amounted to less than a hundred thousand
francs; and the most comical part of it was that the bey's fancy
changed and the royal seat, having fallen into disgrace before it had
even been unpacked, was still in its packing-case at the custom-house
in Tripoli.

Furthermore, aside from these outrageous commissions on the sale of the
most trivial playthings, there were other far more serious accusations,
but equally authentic, as they all came from the same source. In
addition to the seraglio there was a harem of European women, admirably
equipped for His Highness by the Nabob, who should be a connoisseur in
such matters, as he had been engaged in the most extraordinary
occupations in Paris before his departure for the Orient: ticket
speculator, manager of a public ball at the barrier, and of a house of
much lower reputation. And the whispering terminated in a stifled
laugh,--the coarse laugh of two men in private conversation.

The young provincial's first impulse, on hearing those infamous
slanders, was to turn and cry out:

"You lie!"

A few hours earlier he would have done it without hesitation, but since
he had been there he had learned to be suspicious, sceptical. He
restrained himself therefore and listened to the end, standing in the
same spot, having in his heart an unconfessed desire to know more of
the man in whose service he was. As for the Nabob, the perfectly
unconscious subject of that ghastly chronicle, he was quietly playing a
game of ecarte with the Due de Mora in a small salon to which the blue
hangings and two shaded lamps imparted a meditative air.

O wonderful magic of the galleon! The son of the dealer in old iron
alone at a card-table with the first personage of the Empire! Jansoule