Masks and dominos made the street merry under his window.  The opera ball was unusually brilliant, experts said, and nothing made the Parisians aware that on the night of January 12th, 1840, Felix d’Aubremel had passed sentence of death on Chinaman Li, son of Mung, son of Tseu, a literate mandarin of the 114th class.

Nine months later Felix d’Aubremel was living in furnished lodgings in an alley off the Rue St. Pierre, and living by borrowing.  The gentlemanly sceptic owed his landlady a good deal of money; his clothes were aged past wearing, and his tailor had long ago broken off all relations with him.  The Marquis d’Aubremel was within a hairsbreadth of that utterly crushed state that ends in madness, or in suicide—­which is only a variety of madness.

One morning while sitting in the glass cage that leads to the staircase of every lodging-house, waiting to beg another respite from his landlady, he took up a newspaper, and the following notice was lucky enough to catch his attention.

“Chiusang, 12th January, 1840.  Hostilities have broken out between England and the Celestial Empire.  The sudden and inexplicable death of Mandarin Li, the only member of the council who opposed the violent and warlike projects of Lin, led to unfortunate events.  At the first attack the Chinese fled, with the basest want of pluck, but in their retreat they murdered several English merchants, and among them an old resident, Richard Maiden, who leaves an estate of half a million sterling.  The heirs of the deceased are requested to communicate with William Harrison, Solicitor, Lincoln’s Inn.”

“My uncle!” cried Felix.  “Alas, I have killed my uncle and Mandarin Li.”

He had not a penny to pay for his traveling expenses to London; but, on producing his certificate of birth and the newspaper article, his landlady easily negotiated for him with an honest broker, who advanced him a thousand francs to arrange his affairs, without interest, upon his note for a trifle of eighteen hundred, payable in six weeks.

Eight days after reaching London, Felix, established in a fashionable hotel, was awaiting with nervous eagerness the first instalment of a million, the proceeds of a cargo of teas, sold under the direction of Mr. Harrison.  He was too restless for thought, burning with impatience to take possession of his property, to handle his wealth, and, as it were, to verify his dream.  Yet the fact was indisputable.  Richard Malden’s death, and his own relationship to the intestate had been legally proved and established.  Felix d’Aubremel regularly and assuredly inherited a fortune, and he had no doubts nor scruples on that point.

A servant interrupted his reflections, announcing his solicitor’s clerk.  “Why does not Mr. Harrison come himself?” he was on the point of asking, but amazement at the clerk’s appearance took away his breath.  He was a shriveled little object, slight, bony, crooked and hideous, with a monstrous head and round eyes, a bald skull, a flat nose, a mouth from ear to ear, and a little jutting paunch that looked like a sack.