Valentine Corliss, having breakfasted in bed at a late hour that morning, dozed again, roused himself, and, making a toilet, addressed to the image in his shaving-mirror a disgusted monosyllable.
"Ass!"
However, he had not the look of a man who had played cards all night to a disastrous tune with an accompaniment in Scotch.
His was a surface not easily indented: he was hard and healthy, clear-skinned and clear-eyed. When he had made himself point-device, he went into the "parlour" of his apartment, frowning at the litter of malodorous, relics, stumps and stubs and bottles and half-drained glasses, scattered chips and cards, dregs of a night, session. He had been making acquaintances.
He sat at the desk and wrote with a steady hand in Italian:
MOST ILLUSTRIOUS MOLITERNO:
We live but learn little. As to myself it appears that I learn nothing--nothing! You will at once convey to me by CABLE five thousand lire. No; add the difference in exchange so as to make it one thousand dollars which I shall receive, taking that sum from the two-hundred and thirty thousand lire which I entrusted to your safekeeping by cable as the result of my enterprise in this place. I should have returned at once, content with that success, but as you know I am a very stupid fellow, never pleased with a moderate triumph, nor with a large one, when there is a possible prospect of greater. I am compelled to believe that the greater I had in mind in this case was an illusion: my gentle diplomacy avails nothing against a small miser--for we have misers even in these States, though you will not believe it. I abandon him to his riches! From the success of my venture I reserved four thousand dollars to keep by me and for my expenses, and it is humiliating to relate that all of this, except a small banknote or two, was taken from me last night by amateurs. I should keep away from cards--they hate me, and alone I can do nothing with them. Some young gentlemen of the place, whose acquaintance I had made at a ball, did me the honour of this lesson at the native game of poker, at which I--though also native--am not even so expert as yourself, and, as you will admit, Antonio, my friend, you are not a good player--when observed. Unaided, I was a child in their hands. It was also a painful rule that one paid for the counters upon delivery. This made me ill, but I carried it off with an air of carelessness creditable to an adopted Neapolitan. Upon receipt of the money you are to cable me, I shall leave this town and sail immediately. Come to Paris, and meet me there at the place on the Rue Auber within ten days from your reading this letter. You will have, remaining, two hundred and twenty-five thousand francs, which it will be safer to bring in cash, and I will deal well with you, as is our custom with each other. You have done excellently throughout; your cables and letters for exhibition concerning those famous oil wells have been perfection; and I shall of course not deduct what was taken by these thieves of poker players from the sum of profits upon which we shall estimate your commission. I have several times had the feeling that the hour for departure had arrived; now I shall delay not a moment after receiving your cable, though I may occupy the interim with a last attempt to interest my small miser. Various circumstances cause me some uneasiness, though I do not believe I could be successfully assailed by the law in the matter of oil. You do own an estate in Basilicata, at least your brother does--these good people here would not be apt to discover the difference--and the rest is a matter of plausibility. The odious coincidence of encountering the old cow, Pryor, fretted me somewhat (though he has not repeated his annoying call), and I have other small apprehensions--for example, that it may not improve my credit if my loss of last night becomes gossip, though the thieves professed strong habits of discretion.
My little affair of gallantry grows embarrassing. Such affairs are so easy to inaugurate; extrication is more difficult.
However, without it I should have failed to interest my investor and there is always the charm. Your last letter is too curious in that matter. Licentious man, one does not write of these things while under the banner of the illustrious Uncle Sam--I am assuming the American attitude while here, or perhaps my early youth returns to me--a thing very different from your own boyhood, Don Antonio. Nevertheless, I promise you some laughter in the Rue Auber. Though you will not be able to understand the half of what I shall tell you--particularly the portraits I shall sketch of my defeated rivals--your spirit shall roll with laughter.
To the bank, then, the instant you read. Cable me one thousand dollars, and be at the Rue Auber not more than ten days later. To the bank! Thence to the telegraph office. Speed!
V. C.
