Next day Lord Pembroke and the fair Frenchwoman were the first to arrive.  They drove in a carriage with two rather uncomfortable seats, but this discomfort is favourable to love.  The Gascon and the Prussian were the last to come.

We sat down to table at two and left it at four, all of us well pleased with the cook, and still more so with the wine merchant; for though we had emptied forty bottles of wine, not one of us was at all intoxicated.

After coffee had been served the general invited us all to sup with him, and Madame Castelbajac begged me to hold a bank.  I did not wait to be pressed but placed a thousand guineas on the table, and as I had no counters of any kind I warned the company that I would only play gold against gold, and that I should stop playing whenever I thought fit.

Before the game began the two counts paid their losses of the day before to the general in bank notes, which he begged me to change.  I also changed two other notes presented to me by the same gentleman, and put them all under my snuff-box.  Play began.  I had no croupier, so I was obliged to deal slowly and keep an eye on the two counts, whose method of play was very questionable.  At last both of them were dried up, and Castelbajac gave me a bill of exchange for two hundred guineas, begging me to discount it for him.

“I know nothing about business,” I replied.

An Englishman took the bill, and after a careful examination said he neither knew the drawer, the accepter, nor the backer.

“I am the backer,” said Castelbajac, “and that ought to be enough, I think.”

Everybody laughed, besides myself, and I gave it him back courteously, saying politely that he could get it discounted on ’Change the next day.  He got up in a bad temper, and left the room, murmuring some insolent expressions.  Schwering followed him.

After these two worthy gentlemen had left us, I went on dealing till the night was far advanced, and then left off, though I was at a loss.  However, the general had a run of luck, and I thought it best to stop.  Before leaving he took me and Lord Pembroke aside, and begged me to contrive that the two knaves should not come to his house the following day.  “For,” said he, “if that Gascon were to be half as insolent to me as he was to you, I should shew him out by the window.”

Pembroke said he would tell the lady of the general’s wishes.

“Do you think,” said I, “that those four notes of theirs can be forgeries?”

“It’s very possible.”

“What would you advise my doing to clear the matter up?”

“I would send them to the bank.”

“And if they should be forgeries?”

“I would have patience, or I would arrest the rascals.”

The next day I went to the bank myself, and the person to whom I gave the notes gave me them back, saying, coldly,—­

“These notes are bad, sir.”