hundred francs! Monsieur le Baron!”
And the man, overcome, bowed, seized the note and examined it.
“Five hundred francs!” he began again, taken aback. And he stammered in a low voice: “An honest rustler.”
Then brusquely:
“Well, so be it!” he exclaimed. “Let us put ourselves at our ease.”
And with the agility of a monkey, flinging back his hair, tearing off his spectacles, and withdrawing from his nose by sleight of hand the two quills of which mention was recently made, and which the reader has also met with on another page of this book, he took off his face as the man takes off his hat.