fifths of French horses are gray; here, there was scarcely one exception; and the rule extended to the asses which moved amid hundreds of braying mulets, while at the farther end of the ground the teams were parked, and, near by, seller and buyer, book in hand, were chaffering and smoking in shrewd good-humor.
One man was collecting animals for a celebrated stage-route, and the gamester saw that he was a novice.
"Do you choose that for a good horse?" spoke up Risque, in his practical way, when the man had set aside a fine, sinewy draught stallion.
"I do!" said the man, shortly.
"Then you have no eye. He has a bad strain. I can lift all his feet but this one. See! he kicks if I touch it. Walk him now, and you will remark that it tells on his pace."
The man was convinced and pleased. "You are a judge," he said, glancing down Risque's dilapidated dress; "I will make it worth something to you to remain here during the day and assist me."
The imperturbable gamester became a feature of the sale. He was the best rider on the ground. He put his hard, freckled hand into the jaws of stallions, and cowed the wickedest mule with his spotted eye. He knew prices as well as values, and had, withal, a dashing way of bargaining, which baffled the traders and amused his patron.
"You have saved me much money and many mistakes," said the latter, at nightfall. "Who are you?"
"I am the man," answered Risque, straightforwardly, "to work on your stage-line, and I am dead broke."
The man invited Risque to dinner; they rode together on the Champs Elysées; and next morning at daylight the gamester left Paris without a thought or a farewell for the Colony.
It was in the Grand Hotel that Messrs. Hugenot and Plade met by chance the evening succeeding the dinner.
"I shall leave Paris, Andy," said Hugenot, regarding his pumps through his eye-glass. "My ancestry would blush in their coffins if they knew ou-ah cause to be represented by such individuals as those of last evening."
"Let us go together," replied Plade, in his plausible way; "you cannot speak a word of any continental language. Take me along as courier and companion; pay my travelling expenses, and I will pay my own board."
"Can I trust you, Suth Kurlinian?" said Hugenot, irresolutely; "you had no money yesterday."
"But I have a plan of raising a thousand francs to-day. What say you?"
"My family have been wont to see the evidence prior to committing themselves. First show me the specie."
"Voila!" cried Plade, counting out forty louis; "the day after to-morrow I guarantee to own eighteen hundred francs."
It did not occur to Mr. Hugenot to inquire how his friend came to possess so much money; for Hugenot was not a clever man, and somewhat in dread of Andy Plade, who, as his school-mate, had thrashed him repeatedly, and even now that one had grown rich and the other was a vagabond, the latter's strong will and keen, bad intelligence made him the master man.
Hugenot's good fortune was accidental; his cargoes had passed the blockade and given handsome returns; but he shared none of the dangers, and the traffic required no particular skill. Hugenot was, briefly, a favorite of circumstances. The war-wind, which had toppled down many a long, thoughtful head, carried this inflated person to greatness.
They are well contrasted, now that they speak. The merchant, elaborately dressed, varnished pumps upon his effeminate feet, every hair taught its curve and direction, the lunette perched upon no nose to speak of, and the wavering, vacillating eye, which has no higher regard than his own miniature figure. Above rises the vagabond, straight, athletic and courageous, though a knave.
He is so much of a man physically and intellectually, that we do not see his faded coat-collar, frayed cuffs, worn buttons, and untidy boots. He is so little of a man morally, that, to any observer who looks twice, the plausibility of the face will fail to deceive. The eye is deep and direct, but the high, jutting forehead above is like a table of stone, bearing the ten broken commandments. He keeps the lips ajar in a smile, or shut in a resolve, to hide their sensuality, and the fine black beard conceals the massive contour of jaws which are cruel as hunger.
It was strange that Plade, with his clear conception, should do less than despise his acquaintance. On the contrary, he was partial to Hugenot's society. The world asked, wonderingly, what capacities had the latter? Was he not obtuse, sounding, shallow? Mr. Plade alone, of all the Americans in Paris, asserted from the first that Hugenot was far-sighted, close, capable. Indeed, he was so earnest in this enunciation that few thought him disinterested.
It was Master Simp who heard a bold step on the stairs that night, and a resolute knock upon his own door.
"Arrest for debt!" cried Mr. Simp, falling tearfully upon his bed; "I have expected the summons all day."
"The next man may come upon that errand," answered the ringing voice of Andy Plade. "Freckle sleeps in Clichy to-night; Risque cannot be found; the rest are as badly off; I have news for you."
"I am the man to be mocked," pleaded Simp; "but you must laugh at your own joke; I am too wretched to help you."
"The Yankees have opened the Mississippi River; Louisiana is subjugated, and communication re-established with your neighborhood; you can go home."
"What fraction of the way will this carry me?" said the other, holding up a five-franc piece. "My home is farther than the stars from me."
"It is a little sum," urged Mr. Plade; "one hundred dollars should pay the whole passage."
Mr. Simp, in response, mimicked a man shovelling gold pieces, but was too weak to prolong the pleasantry, and sat down on his empty trunk and wept, as Plade thought, like a calf.
"Your case seems indeed hopeless," said the elder. "Suppose I should borrow five hundred dollars on your credit, would you give me two hundred for my trouble?"
Mr. Simp said, bitterly, that he would give four hundred and ninety-five dollars for five; but Plade pressed for a direct answer to his original proffer, and Simp cried "Yes," with an oath.
"Then listen to me! there is no reason to doubt that your neighbors have made full crops for two years—cotton, sugar, tobacco. All this remains at home unsold and unshipped—yours with the rest. Take the oath of allegiance to the Yankee Government before its chargé des affaires in Paris. That will save your crops from confiscation, and be your passport to return. Then write to your former banker here, promising to consign your cotton to him, if he will advance five hundred dollars to take you to Louisiana. He knows you received of old ten thousand dollars per annum. He will risk so small a sum for a thing so plausible and profitable."
"I don't know what you have been saying," muttered Simp. "I cannot comprehend a scheme so intricate; you bewilder me! What is a consignment? How am I, bigad! to make that clear in a letter? Perhaps my speech in the case of Rutledge vs. Pinckney might come in well at this juncture."
"Write!" cried Plade, contemptuously; "write at my dictation."
That night the letter was mailed; Mr. Simp was summoned to his banker's the following noon, and at dusk he met Andy Plade in the Place Vendôme, and paid over a thousand francs with a sigh.
On the third night
