hot stuff, that's what you are--hot stuff. You go along and try the
car. Good-bye--good-bye."

The four Charolais murmured good-bye in deep depression, and went
off with Jean, wearing something of the air of whipped dogs. When
they had gone round the corner the millionaire turned to the Duke
and said, with a chuckle: "He'll buy the car all right--had him
fine!"

"No business success of yours could surprise me," said the Duke
blandly, with a faint, ironical smile.

M. Gournay-Martin's little pig's eyes danced and sparkled; and the
smiles flowed over the distended skin of his face like little
ripples over a stagnant pool, reluctantly. It seemed to be too
tightly stretched for smiles.

"The car's four years old," he said joyfully. "He'll give me eight
hundred for it, and it's not worth a pipe of tobacco. And eight
hundred pounds is just the price of a little Watteau I've had my eye
on for some time--a first-class investment."

They strolled down the terrace, and through one of the windows into
the hall. Firmin had lighted the lamps, two of them. They made but a
small oasis of light in a desert of dim hall. The millionaire let
himself down very gingerly into an Empire chair, as if he feared,
with excellent reason, that it might collapse under his weight.

"Well, my dear Duke," he said, "you don't ask me the result of my
official lunch or what the minister said."