[Illustration: THE BARON BLEW AND PUFFED LIKE A PRIZE-FIGHTER WHEN I HAD FINISHED THE PERUSAL. "THERE," HE CRIED; "I RECEIVE A LETTER LIKE THAT--I, THE BARON GIRAUD--OF THE HIGH FINANCE."] The Baron blew and puffed like a prize-fighter when I had finished the perusal. "There," he cried; "I receive a letter like that--I, the Baron Giraud--of the high finance." "My poor friend, calm yourself," urged the Vicomte. It is easy enough to tell another to calm himself, but who among us can compass such a frame of mind when he is hit in a vital spot? The Baron wiped his forehead nervously. "But," he said, "is it true?" The Vicomte spread out his hands, and never glanced at me as an ordinary man would have done towards one who shared his knowledge. "Who can tell--but yes! So far as human foresight goes--it is true enough." "Then what am I to do?" I stared at the great financier asking such a question. Assuredly he, of all men, needed no one's counsel in a matter of money. "Do as I have done," said the Vicomte; "send your money out of the country." An odd look came over the Baron's face. He glanced from one of us to the other--with the cunning, and somewhat the look, of a cat. The Vicomte was blandly indifferent. As for me, I had, I am told, a hard face in those days--hardened by weather and a disbelief in human nature which has since been modified. "It is a responsibility that you take there," said the financier. "I take no responsibility. A man of my years, of my retired life, knows little of such matters." (I thought he looked older as he spoke.) "I only tell you what I have done with my small possessions." The Baron shook his head with a sly scepticism. After all, the cheapest cunning must suffice for money-making, for I dare swear this man had little else. "But how?" he said. "In bank notes, by hand," was the Vicomte's astonishing answer. And the Baron laughed incredulously. It seems that the highest aim of the high finance is to catch your neighbour telling the truth by accident. It would almost be safe to tell the truth always, so rarely is it recognised. It was not until the Vicomte produced his bankbook and showed the amounts paid in and subsequently withdrawn that the Baron Giraud believed what he had been told. My duties, it may be well to mention in passing, had no part in the expenditure of the Vicomte de Clericy. I had only to deal with the income derived from the various estates, and while being fully aware that large sums had been placed within the hands of his bankers, I had not troubled to be curious respecting the ultimate destination of such moneys. My patron possessed, as has already been intimated, a lively--nay, an exaggerated--sense of the value of money. He was, indeed, as I remember thinking at this time, somewhat of a miser, loving money for its own sake, and not, as did the Baron Giraud, merely for the grandeur and position to be purchased therewith. "But I am not like you," said the financier at length.