“Not at all!” exclaimed Clemenceau, while Antonino, angry at having misjudged the bereaved parent, offered him the hand he had previously refused.

“I thank you both,” said M. Cantagnac, hastening to dry his tears which might have seemed of the crocodile sort when they had time to remember he had been a notary.  “This is not my usual bearing!  Three years ago I was called the Merry One, for I was always laughing, but now”—­he gave a great gulp at a sob like a rosy-gilled salmon taking in a fly and abruptly said: 

“So you want to sell your house, with all belongings?  Which are—­”

“About twelve acres, mostly young wood, but some rocky ground ornamental enough, which will never be productive.  Do you mind getting the plan, Antonino?  It is hanging up in my study.”

Antonino went out, not sorry to be beyond earshot of the boisterous negotiator.

“Young wood, eh?” repeated the latter, “humph! lots of stony ground! ahem! yet it is pretty and so near town.  I wonder you sell it.”

“I want ready money,” returned Clemenceau, bluntly.

“So we all do, ha, ha!  But you surely could raise on it by mortgage.”

“I have tried that.”

“The deuce you have!  That’s strange, when the Emperor said your discovery—­”

“It is a gold mine, but like gold mines, it has plunged the discoverer into debt.”

“I dare say it would! and I suppose it is not so certain-sure as the newspapers assert—­”

“I beg your pardon, it is beyond all doubt,” replied Clemenceau, sharply.

CHAPTER XVI.

STRIKE NOT WOMAN, EVEN WITH ROSES.

“Stop a bit,” said M. Cantagnac, pulling a newspaper out of his pocket.  “This is a journal I picked up in the cars.  I always do that.  There is sure to be some passenger to throw them down and so I never buy any myself when I am traveling, ha, ha!  Well, in this very sheet, there is a long article about you.  It is called ‘The Ideal Cannon’ and the writer declares that the experiment was a great hit, ha, ha! and he undertakes to explain the new system.”

Clemenceau smiled contemptuously.  He was not one of those to make a secret public property on which a nation’s salvation might depend.  In such momentous matters, he would have had arsenals, armories, navy yards and military museums labeled over the door: 

    “Speech is silver, silence is of gold;
    Death unto him who dares the tale unfold!”

“Ah, he wouldn’t know everything, of course.  However, he makes out that you obtain the wonderful result by fixing essential oils in a special magazine and that you managed to project a solid shot to the prodigious distance of—­of—­” he referred to the newspaper—­“fifteen miles by means of—­of—­I do not understand these jaw-breaking scientific terms.  Is it not nitroglycerine?”

“I do not use them myself,” remarked Clemenceau, dryly.