“Ten thousand francs!” Cyrillon laughed.  “I never had so much money in all my life!”

“No?  Well, I have not the notes about me at the moment, but I will send you up that sum in an hour if you wish it.  Your father’s will entitles you to five million francs, so you see I am not in any way endangering myself by advancing you ten thousand.”

Cyrillon was quite silent.  The lawyer studied him curiously, but could not determine whether he was pleased or sorry at the announcement of his fortune.  His handsome face was pale and grave,—­ and after a pause he said simply—­

“Thank you!  Then I can go to Rome.  If you will send me the money you speak of I shall be glad, as it will enable me to start to-night.  For the rest,—­kindly publish my father’s will as he instructed you to do,—­and I—­when I return to Paris, will consult you on the best way in which I can dispose of my father’s millions.”

“Dispose of them!” began Petitot amazedly.  Young Vergniaud interrupted him by a slight gesture.

“Pardon me, Monsieur, if I ask you to conclude this interview!  For the present, I want nothing else in the world but to get to Rome as quickly as possible!—­apres ca, le deluge!”

He smiled—­but his manner was that of some great French noble who gently yet firmly dismisses the attentions of a too-officious servant,—­and Petitot, much to his own surprise, found himself bowing low, and scrambling out of the poorly furnished room in as much embarrassment as though he had accidentally stumbled into a palace where his presence was not required.

And Cyrillon, left to himself, gathered up all the coins he had been counting out previous to the lawyer’s arrival, and tied them again together in the old leathern bag; then having closed and strapped his little travelling valise, sat down and waited.  Punctually to the time indicated, that is to say, in one hour from the moment Petitot had concluded his interview with the celebrated personage whom he now mentally called “an impossible young man,” a clerk arrived bringing the ten thousand francs promised.  He counted the notes out carefully,—­Cyrillon watching him quietly the while, and taking sympathetic observation of his shabby appearance, his thread-bare coat, and his general expression of pinched and anxious poverty.

“You will perceive it is all right, Monsieur,” he said humbly, as he finished counting.

“What are you, mon ami?” asked Cyrillon; scarcely glancing at the notes but fixing a searching glance on the messenger who had brought them.

“I?” and the clerk coughed nervously and blushed,—­“Oh, I am nothing, Monsieur!  I am Monsieur Petitot’s clerk, that is all!”

“And does he pay you well?”

“Thirty francs a week, Monsieur.  It is not bad,—­only this—­I was young a few years ago, and I married—­and two dear little ones came--so it is a pull at times to make everything go as it should—­not that I am sorry for myself at all, oh no!  For I am well off as the people go—­”