and then found her guilty of "uttering only," with a strong
recommendation for mercy. She was sentenced to the Bedford Reformatory.

[Illustration: Fig. 8--One of the loose sheets upon which Mabel Parker
illustrated her methods and her skill as a penman to the supposed
ex-convict "Hickey."]




II

Five Hundred Million Dollars


This story, which ends in New York, begins in the Department of the
Gironde at the town of Monségur, seventy-five kilometers from Bordeaux,
in the little vineyard of Monsieur Emile Lapierre--"landowner." In 1901
Lapierre was a happy and contented man, making a good living out of his
modest farm. To-day he is--well, if you understand the language of the
Gironde, he will tell you with a shrug of his broad shoulders that he
might have been a Monte Cristo had not _le bon Dieu_ willed it
otherwise. For did he not almost have five hundred million dollars--two
and a half _milliards_ of francs--in his very hands? _Hein_? But he did!
Does M'sieu' have doubts? Nevertheless it is all true. _C'est trop
vrai_! Is M'sieu' tired? And would he care to hear the story? There is a
comfortable chair _sous le grand arbre_ in front of the veranda, and
Madame will give M'sieu' a glass of wine from the presses, across the
road. Yes, it _is_ good wine, but there is little profit in it, when one
thinks in _milliards_.