“I would not sell it for six hundred francs.  No, I would not sell it for six hundred francs.”

“It is a very large sum,” said Montfanon.

“No,” continued the good man, “I would not sell it.”  Then extending it to the Marquis, in evident excitement, he cried:  “But to you I will sell it for four hundred francs.”

“But I have offered you five hundred francs for it,” said the nonplussed purchaser.  “You know that is a small sum for such a curiosity.”

“Take it for four,” insisted Ribalta, growing more and more eager, “not a sou less, not a sou more.  It is what it cost me.  And you shall have your documents in two days and the Hafner papers this week.  But was that Bourbon who sacked Rome a Frenchman?” he continued.  “And Charles d’Anjou, who fell upon us to make himself King of the two Sicilies?  And Charles VIII, who entered by the Porte du Peuple?  Were they Frenchmen?  Why did they come to meddle in our affairs?  Ah, if we were to calculate closely, how much you owe us!  Was it not we who gave you Mazarin, Massena, Bonaparte and many others who have gone to die in your army in Russia, in Spain and elsewhere?  And at Dijon?  Did not Garibaldi stupidly fight for you, who would have taken from him his country?  We are quits on the score of service . . . .  But take your prayer-book-good-evening, good-evening.  You can pay me later.”

And he literally pushed the Marquis out of the stall, gesticulating and throwing down books on all sides.  Montfanon found himself in the street before having been able to draw from his pocket the money he had got ready.

“What a madman!  My God, what a madman!” said he to himself, with a laugh.  He left the shop at a brisk pace, with the precious book under his arm.  He understood, from having frequently come in contact with them, those southern natures, in which swindling and chivalry elbow without harming one another—­Don Quixotes who set their own windmills in motion.  He asked himself: 

“How much would he still make after playing the magnamimous with me?” His question was never to be answered, nor was he to know that Ribalta had bought the rare volume among a heap of papers, engravings, and old books, paying twenty-five francs for all.  Moreover, two encounters which followed one upon the other on leaving the shop, prevented him from meditating on that problem of commercial psychology.  He paused for a moment at the end of the street to cast a glance at the Place d’Espagne, which he loved as one of those corners unchanged for the last thirty years.  On that morning in the early days of May, the square, with its sinuous edge, was indeed charming with bustle and light, with the houses which gave it a proper contour, with the double staircase of La Trinite-des-Monts lined with idlers, with the water which gushed from a large fountain in the form of a bark placed in the centre-one of the innumerable caprices in which the fancy of Bernin, that illusive decorator, delighted