CHAPTER X

On the following morning, about eleven o'clock, just as M. de Morin was getting ready to go out, the faithful Joseph informed him that Dr. Delange wished to see him. "Aha!" said the young painter to himself. "Now I've got him!" and he at once gave the order for his visitor to be shown up.

Notwithstanding his knowledge of the world, the Doctor could not, on meeting M. de Morin, hide a certain degree of embarrassment; in fact, he was decidedly uncomfortable and by no means at his ease. His face alone, had need been, would have told the painter that an important service was to be solicited.

"You are surprised to see me?" commenced M. Delange, with a very hesitating manner.

"Not the least in the world. Why should such a happy thought on your part astonish me? You had an hour to spare before breakfast, and you are giving me the benefit of it. I am delighted."

"Alas!" replied the Doctor, "I am not here for the pleasure alone of seeing you. I want to speak to you about a matter of considerable importance."

"Indeed! What is it?"

"You know that I was a heavy loser at the Club the other night."

"Yes, and I am very sorry for it. You see, I wanted to stop playing at eight o'clock, but you were so persistent that I was compelled to carry on the bank."

"Good Heavens! My loss then was more than I could pay, and I wanted to go on, in the hope of getting some of it back. It is the old story over again."

"That is bad. What is the amount of your loss?"

"Ninety thousand francs."

"It is a lot, a very big lot, and I sympathise with you sincerely."

"But worse remains behind," said the Doctor, and his voice trembled. "It is absolutely impossible for me to pay up just at present."

"You don't mean to say so! That is unfortunate, very unfortunate. What will they say at the Club? They have this year been very much down on all that sort of thing. The Committee decided, at their last meeting, to apply the rule in all its severity."

"I know all about it. I shall be posted in twenty-four hours."

"And are you really unable to avoid this—this—unpleasantness?"

"Utterly unable," replied M. Delange.

"Come, let us think it over. Two heads are better than one. Is there no one who would help you out of your difficulty? You have plenty of friends, and rich ones, too."

"The amount is too large. I should never manage to get hold of so much all at once."

He stopped, hesitated for a moment or two, and then, taking courage, said—

"You, and you alone, can, if you will, get me out of this scrape."

"I! Do you imagine that I could lend you ninety thousand francs? My dear fellow, if you only knew how terribly I am in want of money just now, and what expense I am put to! I am, as you may perhaps have heard, about to undertake a tremendously costly journey, and I am bound to scrape together every farthing I can get hold of."

"You do not understand me," replied the Doctor. "I do not ask you to lend me this amount; I only ask you not to press me for payment at once."

"I do not understand you now. Please explain."

"Did you not win about ninety thousand francs the other night?"

"Possibly. I have not yet made up my account."

"Well, at all events, I lost all that you won."

"Excuse me," said M. de Morin, very curtly, "I do not admit that. Counters have very properly been brought into use in clubs in order to avoid all disputes between the players. Consequently, my dear sir, you do not owe me a farthing, not a single farthing. I have in my drawer a larger number of counters, which I shall take with me to the Club when I go there, either to-night or to-morrow, and, in exchange for them, the Club, my sole debtor, will give me bank notes."

"The Club," said M. Delange, nervously, "will reply, or will cause you to be informed, that as the accounts for the game in question have not been settled, it is not in a position to pay you."

"In that case I shall complain to the Committee. As for you. Doctor, you will have no reproaches from me. I assure you, once more, that I do not look upon you as my debtor."

"Be it so; but the Club will look upon me as its debtor, and, as we have already said, that means being posted."

"What on earth do you want me to do?" exclaimed M. de Morin.

"I want you—I want you—" replied M. Delange, hesitating. "I do not know how to put it, but there is a way—"

"What is it?"

"The only plan is for you, when you hand in your counters, not to ask for any money in exchange, but to say merely that you and I have arranged everything between ourselves. I shall be your debtor all the same, your understand, and I give you my word of honour to pay you as soon as I possibly can."

"I do not doubt it, but you are asking me—"

"It would save me! It would save me!" cried the Doctor, whose distress was now at its height.

"It would save you!" replied M. de Morin. "I do not quite see that. I fear that, on the contrary, I should be doing you a very bad turn. You would continue to be a member of the Club; you would play with equal recklessness, and suffer similar losses. Your debt, already of some magnitude, would increase considerably, and the ruin, which to-day merely threatens you, would in three or four months become inevitable. No, no—in your interest, and purely out of sympathy with you, I am anxious to compel you to forsake the life you are now leading. Only think of the brilliant career that lies before you! And you have neglected, nay, almost cast it on one side altogether, simply to give yourself up, soul and body, to a passion which must ruin you."

"There is yet time enough for me to set to work in earnest," replied M. Delange. "If I can only manage honourably to get out of the false position in which I am now placed, I promise solemnly to hand in my resignation as a member of the club, and never to touch a card again in my life."

"Oh, yes!" replied M. de Morin. "'When the devil was sick, the devil a saint would be,' &c., &c., we know all that. But I tell you plainly that if you remain in Paris, and with your present set, you will come to grief sooner or later. You must summon up courage to expatriate yourself, and go far, far away."

"But Paris is the only place where I am known, and where I have any chance of repairing my shattered fortune and getting out of your debt."

"Nonsense! But there is, possibly, another door open to you. Light this cigar, and give me your undivided attention. An idea has struck me."

M. Delange looked up quickly, and M. de Morin, after having taken a few vigorous whiffs at his cigar, continued his remarks as follows—

"Are you of opinion that if I do you the service you wish me to do, I, in turn, have a right to ask you for something in exchange?"

"Certainly, you may dispose of me as you will, I shall be entirely at your orders."

"Even," replied M. de Morin, and he spoke very slowly and dwelt on each word so that his hearer might be taken as little as possible by surprise, "even supposing that it should be a question of undertaking with me this journey I am contemplating, or, in other words, of accompanying me to Africa?"

The young Doctor was evidently not prepared for this proposal, and could not, in spite of the oratorical precautions of M. de Morin, repress a movement of surprise. Nevertheless, he replied at once—

"I would go with you. To what part of Africa are you going?"

"Equatorial Africa."

"You know that it is terribly unhealthy? You may lose your skin there. Pardon the expression, it is proverbial."

"And it is true," replied the young painter. "But we have just come to the conclusion, I think, that in Paris it is possible, under certain conditions, and with certain proclivities, to lose one's honour."

M. Delange took the hint, and hastened to say—

"The unhealthiness of Africa does not alarm me as far as I myself am concerned. I spoke solely in your interest; I am a doctor, and so free from all fear of diseases."

"Then, speaking generally, you will not raise any serious objections to accompany my friends and me?"

"Certainly not, if you require me so to do. In what capacity shall I join you?"

"As our medical adviser, and _savant_ generally to the expedition."

"But how am I to make money by it?" asked the Doctor. "Do you imagine that I shall secure a large practice amongst the tribes of Africa, forsooth? I shall return to Paris perhaps in a year, more probably not for several, quite forgotten, and without having discharged my gambling debt to you."

"First of all, I want you to understand that the all-important point is to wean you from your evil habits of play—that is essential. Secondly, you will very probably get rid of your liability to me."

"I do not understand you. Do you offer me ninety thousand francs to accompany you?"

"I offer you nothing of the sort. The sum you mention is either too much or too little. Our mutual position in society precludes me from offering you a salary, and you from accepting such an offer. But," added M. de Morin, after a long pull at his cigar, "I can give you your revenge for the day before yesterday."

"My revenge!" exclaimed the Doctor, whose face lighted up in a moment. "You will promise to give me my revenge?"

"Why not?

"Then I may win back my losses? I may—"

"You may free yourself from your liabilities to me, and still not go to Africa? That is your meaning, as I take it."

"I assure you—"

"Confess," continued M. de Morin, without paying the slightest attention to the interruption, "that if I were to offer you such an opportunity, I should be an egregious ass. What? You owe me already a sum which you cannot pay, and I am to enter into an engagement to commence afresh, perhaps to increase the amount, which would be futile, or possibly to lose it, which would be idiotic, for you might very well end some day in getting back all your losses?"

"Why, then, did you say anything about my having my revenge?"

"Your revenge under certain conditions."

"Will you kindly explain them to me?"

"That is exactly what I want to do. But it is nearly noon, so let us go to breakfast, and we will discuss it and my ideas together."

An hour later MM. de Morin and Delange, seated face to face in a private room at Bignon's, called for their coffee and writing materials together, and drew up the following contract, on which, after a lengthy discussion, they had agreed.

Art. 1. Dr. Delange hereby acknowledges to being indebted to M. de Morin in the sum of ninety thousand francs, lost at cards.

Art. 2. M. de Morin undertakes to state that this sum has been paid to him, though such is not the case.

Art. 3. In token of his gratitude to M. de Morin for his forbearance and consideration in this matter. Dr. Delange gives his word of honour that within a space of a few weeks he will quit Paris for the purpose of accompanying M. de Morin, for a period of 300 days, to any countries, wheresoever they may be, which the latter may wish to visit.

Art. 4. It is agreed between the contracting parties that, on each day during the voyage, without a single exception, unless in the case of acute and dangerous illness, a game at cards shall take place between MM. de Morin and Delange.

Art. 5. The loser on each night shall have the right of choosing on the following day any game he may elect to play from amongst the well-known games at cards, or he may even select any other game or bet in lieu of cards.

Art. 6. On no pretext whatever shall the stakes exceed fifty louis per diem. It is, therefore, perfectly understood that three hundred _parties_ of 1,000 francs each are to be played Within the space of three hundred days.

Art. 7. The two adversaries shall have the right of fixing, by mutual agreement, the hour when play is to commence; but, should they not agree, the loser shall decide. He may choose the very moment which will suit him best, and may even, in case of need, awake his adversary, should the latter summon sleep to aid him in evading his engagement.

Art. 8. The loser shall also have the right of naming the place, whether it be railway carriage, bridge of a steamer, tent, lake, river, plain, mountain, or desert. At a given signal, his adversary shall be bound to follow him into the shade, the sun, or the water, to the mast-head, or the summit of a mountain-peak.

Art. 9. On the 301st day the account shall be made up. If M. de Morin, after having deducted the ninety thousand francs due to him this day, is the loser, he undertakes to hand over to his adversary a cheque on some banker in Paris, and M. Delange will at once be at liberty to return to France. If, on the other hand, the latter is still in his debt, he will be at liberty to frame a fresh contract for one, two, or three hundred days, at his option, under the conditions already set forth.

Given under our hands at Paris this tenth day of September, one thousand eight-hundred and seventy-two.

As soon as the various clauses of this contract had been committed to paper, M. de Morin said to the Doctor—

"You remember exactly what we have just written?"

"Perfectly."

"And you are quite sure of not forgetting it?"

"I am quite sure."

"Very well. Amongst men like ourselves I am of opinion that there is no necessity for any written agreement. I give you my word that I will faithfully, and to the letter, carry out these engagements. Will you give me yours?"

"I will."

"Then I propose to burn this document."

"I agree, and thank you for your proposal."

In an instant the flames of the taper, brought for the purpose of lighting their cigars, had reduced the contract to ashes.