“_Sir—I have to inform you that I have just arrived in Paris and propose to call on Wednesday morning at your office. You obliged me some time ago by a loan of money; I now intend to discharge the debt. I am therefore coming to repay you ..._” “Ha, ha!” laughed Père Moche, “a pleasant surprise to come! for once a debtor writes to say he is going to pay up without any need to twist his tail. Well, the exception proves the rule; all the same I rather doubt what it all means.” Then he jumped to the fourth page and examined the signature. “By the Lord,” he exclaimed, “it’s my young friend Ascott ... Ascott, that feeble-minded Englishman I have heard nothing of for a very long time—though I never felt any anxiety about the man. Egad! I knew very well he’d been in Paris the last eight and forty hours! is there anything that happens Père Moche _doesn’t_ know? Let’s see what else the young gentleman has to say?... He wants to settle up with me, a very laudable intention, coming from a very honest man. Now how much does the chap owe me?” Leaving the letter on his desk, the old man trotted over to his safe, opened it, and hauling out a ledger began turning over the leaves eagerly. “_Ascott_, here we are! yes, eighteen months ago I lent him 15,000 francs; unless my calculations are all wrong, at the rate of interest agreed upon, he ought to pay me back to-day 22,000. Ah ha! not a bad bit of business! If only a man could have windfalls like that every day, he would be a millionaire in double quick time!” So saying, M. Moche locked up the book again in the strong-box, and came back to his desk, rubbing his hands. “I’ve only read the first few lines of his letter,” he said to himself, “and there’s four pages of the stuff. Can it by any chance be that Ascott at the end of his epistle has modified the good intentions expressed at the beginning?” Moche took up the letter again and skimmed through it eagerly. “No,” he said, his face brightening, “no, he really means to pay me back.” But a look of chagrin suddenly darkened his ugly face. “Why, this is vexing,” he muttered; “now he doesn’t need me any more, he scorns me, he wishes us to break off all relations, he intends never to see me again. Oh, ho! none of that, my fine fellow! Just when the goose is fatted, I’m to part with it, eh? No fear, I’m not such a fool! It’s up to you, my good Monsieur Moche, to arrange things so as to creep up Mister Ascott’s sleeve from now on—and now more than ever.” The old advocate was at this point in his lucubrations, more and more convinced that at all hazards he must remain the rich young Englishman’s friend, when he was startled by a loud knock at the door. “That’s Ascott,” thought Moche, “let’s be quick and let him in.” The old fellow darted to the entrance of his modest dwelling; rapidly turned the key in the lock and threw the door wide open.