indistinct but undeniable signature. I have compared it with that
which is preserved in the archives of Sienna. It is Montluc's writing,
and there is his escutcheon with the turtles.... Here, too, are the
half-moons of the Piccolomini.... This book has a history...."

"The Marshal gave it, after the famous siege, to one of the members of
that illustrious family. And it was for one of the descendants that I
was commissioned to buy it.... They will not give it up for less than
two thousand francs."

"What a cheat!" said Alba to her companion, in English. "Dorsenne told
me that Monsieur de Monfanon bought it for four hundred."

"Are you sure?" asked Fanny, who, on receiving a reply in the
affirmative, addressed the bookseller, with the same gentleness, but
with reproach in her accent: "Two thousand francs, Monsieur Ribalta? But
it is not a just price, since you sold it to Monsieur de Montfanon for
one-fifth of that sum."

"Then I am a liar and a thief," roughly replied the old man; "a thief
and a liar," he repeated. "Four hundred francs! You wish to have this
book for four hundred francs? I wish Monsieur de Montfanon was here to
tell you how much I asked him for it."

The old bookseller smiled cruelly as he replaced the prayerbook in the
drawer, the key of which he turned, and turning toward the two young
girls, whose delicate beauty, heightened by their fine toilettes,
contrasted so delightfully with the sordid surroundings, he enveloped
them with a glance so malicious that they shuddered and instinctively
drew nearer one another. Then the bookseller resumed, in a voice hoarser
and deeper than ever: "If you wish to spend four hundred francs I have
a volume which is worth it, and which I propose to take to the Palais
Savorelli one of these days.... Ha, ha! It must be one of the very
last, for the Baron has bought them all." In uttering, those enigmatical
words, he opened the cup board which formed the lower part of the chest,
and took from one of the shelves a book wrapped in a newspaper. He then
unfolded the journal, and, holding the volume in his enormous hand with
his dirty nails, he disclosed the title to the two young girls: 'Hafner
and His Band; Some Reflections on the Scandalous Acquittal. By a
Shareholder.' It was a pamphlet, at that date forgotten, but which
created much excitement at one time in the financial circles of
Paris, of London and of Berlin, having been printed at once in three
languages--in French