"I wasted till his note was changed. 'Now, my friend,' I said. 'The hour is come.'"

"He looked at me attentively; he is very naive, in reality. Then, very slowly, he put one hand in his pocket and drew out the whole bundle of money. It looked opulent, it looked fulsome.

"'Savinien,' he said. 'I will do even more than you ask. Two-fifty, is it not? See, now, here is five hundred, and I will toss you whether I pay you five hundred or nothing.'"

"He balanced a coin on his thumb-nail, and smiled at me sidelong. I drew myself up with dignity to repudiate his proposal, but at that instant there came to me--who can say what it was?--a whim, a nudge from the thumb of Providence, a momentary lunacy! I relaxed my att.i.tude."

"'Very well,' I replied. 'But first permit me to examine the coin.'"

"With Rigobert, that is not an insult. He handed me the coin without a word--an honest cart-wheel, a five-franc piece."

"'Toss, then,' I said, returning it to him. 'Face!' I called, as he spun it up. It twinkled in the air like a humming-bird, a score of francs to each flick of its wings, and his palm intercepted it as it fell. I leaned across to see; behind Rigobert's shoulder the waiter leaned likewise. The poor fellow had really no chance to practice those little tricks in which he is eminent. I had won. I drew the money across to me."

"'Peste!' remarked Rigobert, in a tone of dejection, and looked with an appearance of horror at what remained to him of his thousand francs. The waiter beamed at me and rubbed his hands. I ordered him in a strong voice to bring two more consommations."

"'Look here,' said Rigobert. 'Lend me that five hundred, will you?

Or, at any rate----'"

"He paused, and his eye lit again with hope."

"'Tell you what,' he said. 'I'll toss you once more--five hundred against five hundred. This'--he laid his hand on his remaining money --'is no use to me. I simply can't do with less than a thousand. Is it agreed?"

"I desired to refuse; I am not a gambler; I come of prudent people.

But again it came, that inspired impulse, that courageous folly."

"'It is agreed,' I replied."

"He meant to win, that time. He sat back to it, he concentrated himself. He cast a look at me, the glance of a brigand. I was imperturbable. Again the waiter hurried to see the venture. Rigobert frowned."

"'You call "face," eh?' he asked, balancing the coin."

"'I call when the coin is in the air,' I replied."

"He grunted, and spun it up. 'Pile!' I called this time. Down it came to his hand. Once more the eyes of the waiter and myself rushed to it; the result was capable of no adjustment. I felt my heart b.u.mp painfully. The broad coin lay on his hand, pile uppermost. I drew the rest of the money to me."

"'A thousand thanks,' I croaked from a throat constricted with surprise. Rigobert swore."

Cobb laughed. "Is that all that is troubling you?" he asked.

"All!" Savinien shrugged his immense shoulders desolately. "All! That was merely the commencement," he said. "And even that did not finish there."

"I hope Rigobert didn't get any of it back," said Cobb.

"He did his best," replied Savinien. "In a minute or two he collected his wits and addressed himself to the situation. It was worth seeing.

He shook his depression from him like a dog shaking water from its coat, and sat up. Enterprise, determination, ruthlessness were eloquent in his countenance; I felt like a child before such a combination of qualities. Then he began to talk. He has an air, that brigand; he can c.o.c.k his head so as to deceive a bailiff; he can wear a certain n.o.bility of countenance; and with it all he can importune like a beggar. He has a horrid and plausible fluency; he is deaf to denials; he drugs you with words and robs you before you recover consciousness. He had got the length of quoting my own verses to me, and I felt myself going, when deliverance arrived. A stout man paused on the pavement, surveying us both, then came towards us.

"'Monsieur Rigobert,' he said, with that fashion of politeness which one dreads, 'I am on my way to your address.'"

"'Do not let me detain you,' replied Rigobert unpleasantly.

"'But,' said the other, 'this was the day you appointed, M'sieur. You said, 'Bring your bill to me on the 13th, and I will pay it.' Here is the bill.'"

"He plunged his hand into his breast pocket and fumbled with papers.

Rigobert examined me rapidly. But the spell was broken, and I was myself again master of my emotions, and of the thousand francs. He saw that it was hopeless--and rose.

"'Monsieur,' he said to the tradesman, 'this is not a time to talk to me of business. I have just suffered a painful bereavement.'"

"He made a gesture with his hand, mournful and resigned, and walked away, while the tradesman gazed after him. And there was I--rich and safe! I felt a warmth that pervaded me. I settled my hat on my head and reached for my cane. It was then that the truly significant thing occurred--the clue, as it were. My hand, as I took my cane, brushed against my liqueur gla.s.s upon the table; it fell, rolled to the edge, and disappeared. The waiter dived for it, while I waited to pay for the breakage. His foolish German face came up over the edge of the table, crumpled in a smile.

"'It is all right,' he said. 'The gla.s.s is not broken.'"

"It was then, my friend, that I began to perceive how things were with me. Dimly at first, but, as the day proceeded, with growing clearness. I became aware that I stood in the shadow of some strange fate. Small ills, chances of trifling misfortune, stood aloof, and let me pa.s.s unharmed; I was destined to be the prey of a mightier evil. When I light my cigarette, do my matches blow out in the wind?

No, they burn with the constancy of an altar candle. If I leave my gloves in a cab, as happened yesterday, do I lose them? No, the cabman comes roaring down the street at my back to catch me and restore them. A thousand such providences make up my day. This morning, just before I encountered you, the chief and most signal of them all occurred."

"Go on," said Cobb.

"It was, in fact, impressive," said Savinien. "There is, not far from here, a shop where I am accustomed to buy my cigarettes. A small place, you know, a hole in the wall, with a young ugly woman behind the counter. One enters, one murmurs 'Maryland,' one receives one's yellow packet, one pays, one salutes, one departs. There is nothing in the place to invite one to linger; never in my life have I said more than those two words--'Maryland' on entering and 'Madame' on leaving--to the good creature of the shop. I do not know her name, nor she mine. Ordinarily she is reading when I enter; she puts down her book to serve me as one might put down a knife and fork; it must often happen that she interrupts herself in the middle of a word. She gets as far as:

"'Jean ki----' then I enter. 'Maryland,' I murmur, receive my packet, and pay. 'Madame!' I raise my hat and depart. Not till then does she know the continuation:--'ssed Marie,' or 'cked the Vicomte,'

whichever it may be. Not a luxurious reader, that one, you see.

"Well, this morning I enter as usual. There she sits, book in hand.

'Maryland' I murmur. For the first time in my experience of her she does not at once lay the book, face downwards, on the counter, and turn to the shelf behind her to reach me my cigarettes. No, the good creature is absorbed. 'Pardon,' I say, rather louder. She looks up, and it is clear she is impatient at being disturbed. 'Maryland,' I request. She puts down the book and fumbles for a packet. But I am curious to know what book it is that holds her so strongly, what genius of a romancer has aimed so surely at her intelligence. I turn the book round with a finger. The shop, the shelves, the horse's face of Madame the proprietress swim before me. I could dance; I could weep; I could embrace the lady in the pure joy of an artist appreciated and requited. For of all the books ever printed upon paper, that book is mine. My verses! My songs of little lives, they grasp at her and will not let go, like importunate children; she is not easily nor willingly free of them when affairs claim her. Nunc dimittis!"

"What did you do?" inquired Cobb. "Give her a watch, or what?"

"My friend," said Savinien, "I was careful. To do a foolish or a graceless thing would have been to dethrone for her a poet. There was need of a s.p.a.cious and becoming gesture. I opened her book at the fly-leaf, and reached across to the comptoir for a pen. She turned at that and stared, possibly fearful, poor creature, that it was the till that attracted me. I took the pen and splashed down on the fly- leaf of the book my name in full--a striking signature! Then without a further word that might make an anti-climax, I took my cigarettes and departed. I was so thrilled, so exalted, that it was five minutes before I remembered to be afraid."

"For my fortune was becoming bizarre, you know. It was making me ridiculous even to myself. I have told you but the salient incidents of it; I do not desire to weary you with the facts of the broken braces, the spurious two-franc piece, or the lost door-key. But it is becoming sinister; it needed a counter-poise before it became so p.r.o.nounced that nothing but sudden death would suffice. The thief steals my watch and I am relieved; he is departing with my best wishes for his success; all promises well, till you arrive at the charge, with your comb erect, and seize him. It is all of a piece.

Yes, I know it is funny, but it alarms me. I offer it, therefore, my watch--a sacrifice. Perhaps it likes watches. If so, I have got off cheaply, for, to tell the truth, it was not much of a watch."

He raised the minute gla.s.s and drank, setting it down again with a flourish.

"And now I must be going," he said. "It is a strange story--not? But I don't like it; I don't like it at all."

"Adieu," said Cobb, rising also. "I don't think I'd worry, if I were you. And I won't interfere again."

"On no account," said Savinien, seriously.

Cobb watched him move away, plodding along the pavement heavily, huge and portentous. The back of his head bulged above the collar, with no show of neck between. He was comical and pathetic; he seemed too vast in mere flesh to be the sport of a thing so freakish as luck. To think that such a bulk had a weak heart in it--and that deeper still in its recesses there moved and suffered the soul of a poet!

"Queer yarn," mused Cobb.

It was on the following morning, while Cobb was dressing, that the messenger arrived--a little man in black, with a foot-rule sticking out of his coat-pocket. He looked like an elderly man-servant who had descended to trade. He had a letter for Cobb, addressed in Savinien's pyrotechnic hand, and handed it to him without speaking.

"My dear friend," it said, "I fear the worst. On my return to my rooms here, the first thing I saw was my watch, reposing on my bedside table. It appears that when I made my toilet in the morning I forgot to put it in my pocket. The thief, after all, got nothing. I am lost. In despair, Your Cesar Savinien."

"Yes?" said Cobb. "You want an answer?" For the little artisan in black was waiting.