“The deuce!  That never struck me.  It does seem queer.  Does he want to play me a nasty trick?  But which of them is it—­Verminet or Van Klopen?”

“It is plain to me that the pair of them have entered into a pleasant little plot to blackmail you.”

Young Gandelu did not at all like this turn, and he exclaimed,—­

“Blackmail me, indeed! why, I know my way about better than that.  They won’t get much out of me, I can tell you.”

Andre shrugged his shoulders.

“Then,” said he, “just tell me what you intend to say to Verminet when he comes to you upon the day your bills fall due, and says to you, ’Give me one hundred thousand francs for these five little bits of paper, or I go straight to your father with them’?”

“I should say, of course—­ah, well, I really do not know what I should say.”

“You could say nothing, except that you had been imposed on in the most infamous way.  You would plead for time, and Verminet would give it to you if you would execute a deed insuring him one hundred thousand francs on the day you came of age.”

“A hundred thousand devils are all the rogue would get from me.  That’s the way I do things, do you see?  If people try and ride roughshod over me, I merely hit out, and then just look out for broken bones.  Pay this chap?  Not I!  I know the governor would make an almighty shine, but I’ll choose that sooner than be had like that.”

He was quite serious but could only put his feelings into the language he usually spoke.

“I think,” answered Andre, “that your father would forgive this imprudence, but that it will be even harder for him to do so than it was to send a doctor to number the hours he had to live.  He will forgive you because he is your father, and because he loves you; but Verminet, when he finds that the threat to go to your father does not appall you, will menace you with criminal proceedings.”

“Hulloo!” said Gandelu, stopping short.  “I say, that is very poor fun,” gasped he.

“There is no fun in it, for such fun, when brought to the notice of a court of justice, goes by the ugly name of forgery, and forgery means a swinging heavy sentence.”

Gaston turned pale, and trembled from head to foot.

“Tried and sentenced,” faltered he.  “No, I don’t believe you, but I hold no honors and will turn up my cards.”  He quite forgot that he was in the public street, and was talking at the top of his shrill falsetto voice, and gesticulating violently.

“The poor old governor, I might have made him so happy, and, after all, I have only been a torment to him.  Ah, could I but begin once more; but then the cards are dealt, and I must go on with the game, and I have made a nice muddle of the whole thing before I am twenty years of age; but no criminal courts for me, no, the easiest way out of it is a pistol shot, for I am an honest man’s son, and I will not bring more disgrace on him than I have already done.”