companion and addressing the opposite wall instead, seemed to
intimate that he was rehearsing for the President, whose
examination he was shortly to undergo, rather than troubling
himself merely to enlighten so small a person as John Baptist
Cavalletto.

'Call me five-and-thirty years of age. I have seen the world. I
have lived here, and lived there, and lived like a gentleman
everywhere. I have been treated and respected as a gentleman
universally. If you try to prejudice me by making out that I have
lived by my wits--how do your lawyers live--your politicians--your
intriguers--your men of the Exchange?'

He kept his small smooth hand in constant requisition, as if it
were a witness to his gentility that had often done him good
service before.

'Two years ago I came to Marseilles. I admit that I was poor; I
had been ill. When your lawyers, your politicians, your
intriguers, your men of the Exchange fall ill, and have not scraped
money together, they become poor. I put up at the Cross of Gold,--
kept then by Monsieur Henri Barronneau--sixty-five at least, and in
a failing state of health. I had lived in the house some four
months when Monsieur Henri Barronneau had the misfortune to die;--
at any rate, not a rare misfortune, that. It happens without any
aid of mine, pretty often.'

John Baptist having smoked his cigarette down to his fingers' ends,
Monsieur Rigaud had the magnanimity to throw him another. He
lighted the second at the ashes of the first, and smoked on,