“I will give you this as a retaining fee,” he said, “if you will undertake the work I want you to do; and I will double the amount when you have carried the work out success fully.”

Four hundred francs!  It was not lavish, it was perhaps not altogether the price I would have named, but it was vary good, these hard times.  You understand?  We were all very poor in France in that year 1815 of which I speak.

I am always quite straightforward when I am dealing with a client who means business.  I pushed aside the litter of papers in front of me, leaned my elbows upon my desk, rested my chin in my hands, and said briefly: 

“M.  Charles Saurez, I listen!”

He drew his chair a little closer and dropped his voice almost to a whisper.

“You know the Chancellerie of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs?” he asked.

“Perfectly,” I replied.

“You know M. de Marsan’s private office?  He is chief secretary to M. de Talleyrand.”

“No,” I said, “but I can find out.”

“It is on the first floor, immediately facing the service staircase, and at the end of the long passage which leads to the main staircase.”

“Easy to find, then,” I remarked.

“Quite.  At this hour and until twelve o’clock, M. de Marsan will be occupied in copying a document which I desire to possess.  At eleven o’clock precisely there will be a noisy disturbance in the corridor which leads to the main staircase.  M. de Marsan, in all probability, will come out of his room to see what the disturbance is about.  Will you undertake to be ready at that precise moment to make a dash from the service staircase into the room to seize the document, which no doubt will be lying on the top of the desk, and bring it to an address which I am about to give you?”

“It is risky,” I mused.

“Very,” he retorted drily, “or I’d do it myself, and not pay you four hundred francs for your trouble.”

“Trouble!” I exclaimed, with withering sarcasm.

“Trouble, you call it?  If I am caught, it means penal servitude—­New Caledonia, perhaps—­”

“Exactly,” he said, with the same irritating calmness; “and if you succeed it means four hundred francs.  Take it or leave it, as you please, but be quick about it.  I have no time to waste; it is past nine o’clock already, and if you won’t do the work, someone else will.”

For a few seconds longer I hesitated.  Schemes, both varied and wild, rushed through my active brain:  refuse to take this risk, and denounce the plot to the police; refuse it, and run to warn M. de Marsan; refuse it, and—­ I had little time for reflection.  My uncouth client was standing, as it were, with a pistol to my throat—­with a pistol and four hundred francs!  The police might perhaps give me half a louis for my pains, or they might possibly remember an unpleasant little incident in connexion with the forgery of some Treasury bonds which they have never succeeded in bringing home to me—­one never knows!  M. de Marsan might throw me a franc, and think himself generous at that!