After I had been living thus for rather longer than three weeks, I made up my mind one Sunday morning to call at Dalrymple’s rooms, and inquire if he had yet arrived in Paris.  It was about eleven o’clock when I reached the Chaussee d’Antin, and there learned that he was not only arrived, but at home.  Being by this time in possession of the luxury of a card, I sent one up, and was immediately admitted.  I found breakfast still upon the table; Dalrymple sitting with an open desk and cash-box before him; and, standing somewhat back, with his elbow resting on the chimney-piece, a gentleman smoking a cigar.  They both looked up as I was announced, and Dalrymple, welcoming me with a hearty grasp, introduced this gentleman as Monsieur de Simoncourt.

M. de Simoncourt bowed, knocked the ash from his cigar, and looked as if he wished me at the Antipodes.  Dalrymple was really glad to see me.

“I have been expecting you, Arbuthnot,” said he, “for the last week.  If you had not soon beaten up my quarters, I should have tried, somehow, to find out yours.  What have you been about all this time?  Where are you located?  What mischief have you been perpetrating since our expedition to the guingette on the river?  Come, you have a thousand things to tell me!”

M. de Simoncourt looked at his watch—­a magnificent affair, decorated with a costly chain, and a profusion of pendant trifles—­and threw the last-half of his cigar into the fireplace.

“You must excuse me, mon cher” said he.  “I have at least a dozen calls to make before dinner.”

Dalrymple rose, readily enough, and took a roll of bank-notes from the cash-box.

“If you are going,” he said, “I may as well hand over the price of that Tilbury.  When will they send it home?”

“To-morrow, undoubtedly.”

“And I am to pay fifteen hundred franks for it!”

“Just half its value!” observed M. de Simoncourt, with a shrug of his shoulders.

Dalrymple smiled, counted the notes, and handed them to his friend.

“Fifteen hundred may be half its cost,” said he; “but I doubt if I am paying much less than its full value.  Just see that these are right.”

M. de Simoncourt ruffled the papers daintily over, and consigned them to his pocket-book.  As he did so, I could not help observing the whiteness of his hands and the sparkle of a huge brilliant on his little finger.  He was a pale, slender, olive-hued man, with very dark eyes, and glittering teeth, and a black moustache inclining superciliously upwards at each corner; somewhat too nonchalant, perhaps, in his manner, and somewhat too profuse in the article of jewellery; but a very elegant gentleman, nevertheless.

“Bon!” said he.  “I am glad you have bought it.  I would have taken it myself, had the thing happened a week or two earlier.  Poor Duchesne!  To think that he should have come to this, after all!”