“It is nine o’clock,” cried Ernest.  “I shall start for Paris at full gallop; I can get there to-morrow morning by ten.  My dear Butscha, from you she will accept anything, for she is attached to you; let me give her a riding-whip in your name.  If you will do me this immense kindness, you shall have not only my friendship but my devotion.”

“Ah, you are very happy,” said Butscha, ruefully; “you have money, you!”

“Tell Canalis not to expect me, and that he must find some pretext to account for my absence.”

An hour later Ernest had ridden out of Havre.  He reached Paris in twelve hours, where his first act was to secure a place in the mail-coach for Havre on the following evening.  Then he went to three of the chief jewellers in Paris and compared all the whip-handles that they could offer; he was in search of some artistic treasure that was regally superb.  He found one at last, made by Stidmann for a Russian, who was unable to pay for it when finished,—­a fox-head in gold, with a ruby of exorbitant value; all his savings went into the purchase, the cost of which was seven thousand francs.  Ernest gave a drawing of the arms of La Bastie, and allowed the shop-people twenty hours to engrave them.  The handle, a masterpiece of delicate workmanship, was fitted to an india-rubber whip and put into a morocco case lined with velvet, on which two M.’s interlaced were stamped in gold.

La Briere got back to Havre by the mail-coach Wednesday morning in time to breakfast with Canalis.  The poet had concealed his secretary’s absence by declaring that he was busy with some work sent from Paris.  Butscha, who met La Briere at the coach-door, took the box containing the precious work of art to Francoise Cochet, with instructions to place it on Modeste’s dressing-table.

“Of course you will accompany Mademoiselle Modeste on her ride to-day?” said Butscha, who went to Canalis’s house to let La Briere know by a wink that the whip had gone to its destination.

“I?” answered Ernest; “no, I am going to bed.”

“Bah!” exclaimed Canalis, looking at him.  “I don’t know what to make of you.”

Breakfast was then served, and the poet naturally invited their visitor to stay and take it.  Butscha complied, having seen in the expression of the valet’s face the success of a trick in which we shall see the first fruits of his promise to Modeste.

“Monsieur is very right to detain the clerk of Monsieur Latournelle,” whispered Germain in his master’s ear.

Canalis and Germain went into the salon on a sign that passed between them.

“I went out this morning to see the men fish, monsieur,” said the valet,—­“an excursion proposed to me by the captain of a smack, whose acquaintance I have made.”

Germain did not acknowledge that he had the bad taste to play billiards in a cafe,—­a fact of which Butscha had taken advantage to surround him with friends of his own and manage him as he pleased.