unsigned document which Eveline had returned.

Kaulmann wrote on a slip of paper, "Another hitch in that damned
railway."

The prince said to himself, "Then his wife has again escaped." Then he
bent over Kaulmann, and, laying his hand upon his shoulder, whispered
to him:

"My dear friend, one doesn't get everything by a pair of black eyes."

Spitzhase was the secretary of the meeting. After this little scene he
wrote upon a piece of paper, and, twisting it up, handed it to
Kaulmann. Kaulmann read it; then tore it in small pieces and shrugged
his shoulders.

"I know all _that_," he said, sulkily. "I don't want any advice."

The committee went away in bad humor with one another. The expense of
bringing the deputation from Bondathal had been two thousand gulden,
and this comedy had been of no use. The last stake should now be
played. Csanta had determined not to pay the third instalment. He
would sell all his shares at the price quoted and refill his casks
with silver. On the day of the Proclamation, however, he received a
letter from Spitzhase, which ran as follows:

"SIR,--To-morrow Herr Kaulmann is going to you to
offer to buy all your shares at forty-five florins
exchange. Be on your guard. I can assure you that the
government has signed a grant for the Bondavara
Railway, and so soon as this is public the shares will
rise another twenty per cent."

Csanta believed in Spitzhase as in an oracle, and with reason. All
happened as he said. Immediately upon the issue of the Proclamation,
and when the shares were a little flat, Kaulmann appeared in X----,
and offered him forty-five florins exchange upon his shares. But the
old Greek was firm, not one would he part with; he would rather take
his last cask to Vienna and empty its contents than part with one
share.

He was rewarded for his firmness. Two days later he read in the
newspaper how generously both Houses had voted a grant to the
Bondavara Railway.

His excellency the prime-minister had himself pleaded for the cause in
the Lords and Deputies House, and had proved conclusively that, from
the political point of view, from the present favorable condition of
the money market, as also from the side of the landed interest, from
every point of view--strategical, financial, co-operative, and
universal--the government guarantee for the Bondavara Railway was
absolutely necessary, and, as a natural consequence, the motion was
car