“Another reason why I want it,” returned Pompilard. “Supposing the security were satisfactory, what bonus should you require for getting me the money? Please give me your lowest terms, and at once, for I have an engagement in five minutes on ’Change.” “Well, sir,” said Charlton, in the tone of a man to whom it is an ordinary act to drive the knife in deep, “I think in these times five per cent would be about right.” “Pooh! I’ll bid you good morning, Mr. Charlton,” said Pompilard, with an air of unspeakable contempt. “Come, Grip.” And Mr. Pompilard bowed and turned to leave, just as another knock was heard at the door. He opened it, encountering four men, one of whom kicked the unoffending terrier; an indignity which Pompilard resented by switching the aggressor smartly twice round the legs, and then passed on. He had not descended five steps when a bullet from a pistol grazed his whiskers. “Not a bad shot that, my Southern friend!” said the old man, deliberately continuing his descent. Before losing sight of Pompilard we must explain why he was desirous that his wife should communicate with Mrs. Berwick. Inheriting a fortune from his mother, Albert Pompilard had managed to squander it in princely expenditures before he was twenty-five years old. The vulgar dissipations of sensualists he despised. He abstained from wine and strong drink at a time when to abstain was to be laughed at. With the costliest viands and liquors on his table for guests, he himself ate sparingly and drank cold water. Had he been as scrupulously moral in the management of his soul as he was of his body, he would have been a saint. But he was a spendthrift and a gambler on a large scale. Having ruined himself financially, he married. A little money which his wife brought him was staked entire on a stock operation, and won. Thence a new fortune larger than the first. At thirty-five he was worth half a million. He took his wife, two daughters, and a son to Paris, gave entertainments that made even royalty envious, and in ten years returned to New York a bankrupt. His wife died, and Pompilard appeared once more at the stock board. Ill-luck now pursued him with remorseless pertinacity, but never succeeded in disturbing his equanimity. He was frightfully in debt, but the consideration never for a moment marred his digestion nor his slumbers. The complacency of a man contented with himself and the world shed its beams over his features always.