Charleroi was the old family plantation, lying some twenty miles down the river.  Years ago the estate had been sold to discharge the debts of its too-bountiful owners.  Once again it had changed hands, and now the must and mildew of litigation had settled upon it.  A question of heirship was in the courts, and the dwelling house of Charleroi, unless the tales told of ghostly powdered and laced Charleses haunting its unechoing chambers were true, stood uninhabited.

Grandemont found the solicitor in chancery who held the keys pending the decision.  He proved to be an old friend of the family.  Grandemont explained briefly that he desired to rent the house for two or three days.  He wanted to give a dinner at his old home to a few friends.  That was all.

“Take it for a week—­a month, if you will,” said the solicitor; “but do not speak to me of rental.”  With a sigh he concluded:  “The dinners I have eaten under that roof, mon fils!”

There came to many of the old, established dealers in furniture, china, silverware, decorations and household fittings at their stores on Canal, Chartres, St. Charles, and Royal Streets, a quiet young man with a little bald spot on the top of his head, distinguished manners, and the eye of a connoisseur, who explained what he wanted.  To hire the complete and elegant equipment of a dining-room, hall, reception-room, and cloak-rooms.  The goods were to be packed and sent, by boat, to the Charleroi landing, and would be returned within three or four days.  All damage or loss to be promptly paid for.

Many of those old merchants knew Grandemont by sight, and the Charleses of old by association.  Some of them were of Creole stock and felt a thrill of responsive sympathy with the magnificently indiscreet design of this impoverished clerk who would revive but for a moment the ancient flame of glory with the fuel of his savings.

“Choose what you want,” they said to him.  “Handle everything carefully.  See that the damage bill is kept low, and the charges for the loan will not oppress you.”

To the wine merchants next; and here a doleful slice was lopped from the six hundred.  It was an exquisite pleasure to Grandemont once more to pick among the precious vintages.  The champagne bins lured him like the abodes of sirens, but these he was forced to pass.  With his six hundred he stood before them as a child with a penny stands before a French doll.  But he bought with taste and discretion of other wines—­Chablis, Moselle, Chateau d’Or, Hochheimer, and port of right age and pedigree.

The matter of the cuisine gave him some studious hours until he suddenly recollected Andre—­Andre, their old chef—­the most sublime master of French Creole cookery in the Mississippi Valley.  Perhaps he was yet somewhere about the plantation.  The solicitor had told him that the place was still being cultivated, in accordance with a compromise agreement between the litigants.