CHAPTER X

THE USES OF ADVERSITY

"My dear Laroque!" exclaimed M. Perissard, effusively holding out his hand as the adventurer advanced to meet him.

"Well! How are you, monsieur?" returned the ether, cordially shaking his hand. "By heaven! You've put on flesh, haven't you?"

M. Perissard laughed.

"Ah! I put most of that on with my clothes every morning," he explained with a wink of elephantine slyness.

"Every morning! What on earth for?" demanded Laroque, blankly.

"Thin people do not inspire confidence," declared M. Perissard, impressively, but still smiling. "Fat people do!" Then he noticed the woman in the chair and evolved an elaborate bow, seconded by M. Merivel. "Madame!"

"My life's companion--for the last six months," said Laroque, with flippant irony and an introductory wave of his hand. The partners bowed once more in unison and the woman acknowledged the introduction with a perfunctory nod, the absinthe and cigarette immediately reclaiming her attention.

"Let me present M. Merivel," said Perissard, suavely. "Formerly a schoolmaster, but now my friend and associate!"

"Delighted!" exclaimed Laroque, squeezing a limp, mushy hand, "But, sit down! Sit down!"

All three took chairs, the visitors carefully placing their silk hats on the floor beside them.

"And first let me thank you," he went on addressing himself to the older man, "to begin with----"

"For the thousand francs I sent you?"

"Yes," nodded Laroque. M. Perissard smiled.

"When I received your letter it struck me that you were not exactly rolling in money," he said with ponderous playfulness.

"I wasn't--exactly!" laughed the young man.

"So I thought it was well to send you a little on account," continued M. Perissard.

"And supposing I had put the money in my pocket and remained in South America?"

"I should have lost my thousand francs. But I wasn't afraid of that," his prospective employer assured him. "I knew you too well, Laroque. I knew you to be too--too----"

"Too honest?" grinned the adventurer.

"Too intelligent," corrected M. Perissard, "to do such a foolish thing. What are a thousand francs," with an expressive sweep of his arm, "in the position I am going to offer you!"

"As good as that, eh?" There was an eager gleam in his eyes.

"Ask M. Merivel!" said the senior partner bowing toward his friend.

M. Merivel, thus appealed to, delivered his first contribution to the chat in an unctuous bass.

"A first class position! _Most_ admirable!" "Well! That sounds interesting!" and Laroque hitched his chair a little nearer.

The woman had just finished concocting a third glass of absinthe and now she rose with:

"I'll leave you to your business talk and go and unpack the trunk."

"Yes, do, my girl!" nodded her "life's companion," and she passed out with the drink and the package of cigarettes.

"Now then, to business!" said M. Perissard in slightly crisper tones when the door had closed.

"Right!"

"To begin with, I'm no longer a lawyer," declared M. Perissard.

"So I see," nodded Laroque. "According to your card you are now a Notary Public." His eyes twinkled.

Messrs. Perissard and Merivel laughed at the same moment and for precisely the same length of time. The Siamese Twins were in constant discord compared with these two.

"That's to inspire confidence," explained the senior partner.

"I see! Like this!" chuckled the adventurer sticking his finger into M. Perissard's paunch.

"Ah, yes!" rumbled M. Merivel, rolling his eyes up piously and clasping his hands, "Confidence is such a be--u--tiful thing in these days of disrespect! Alas! To-day respect is rapidly disappearing. The young have ceased to respect the old and the family solicitor no longer holds the proud position that was his. 'Where are the snows of yesteryear'?"

Laroque listened to this speech with a grin that indicated an utter absence of the virtue the decline of which struck M. Merivel as so exceedingly deplorable.

"By Jove! He talks well, doesn't he?" he exclaimed.

"Like a book!" declared M. Perissard in a hoarse but enthusiastic whisper. "But to resume," he added in his "business" voice, "I'm in business now."

"What sort of business?" inquired the adventurer.

"Business of all kinds. I refuse no business!"

"With money in it," amended M. Merivel, in a thunderous aside.

"But we deal principally in the faults, vices and weakness of our fellow men," continued the senior partner.

"Sounds like a good trade!" commented Laroque, heartily, his lips twitching, as he glanced from one to the other.

"And a _most_ moral one!" came unctuously from the unsounded depths of M. Merivel's chest, "For we do good with the Strong Hand, you see. Ah-_utile dulci_--the Latin--ahem!"

"I don't altogether get you," said the young man, crossing one knee over the other with the air of a man who has made up his mind not to understand hints. M. Perissard shifted his chair a little, cleared his throat and leaned forward with his hands on his thighs.

"You shall!" he declared, a little more of the "stagey" quality was missing in his voice. "There are very few houses without a skeleton in the closet."

"Skeletons are cheap to-day!" struck in M. Merivel's bass.

"And in the best families there are often secrets which are worth a fortune," continued M. Perissard, impressively.

Laroque's eye-brows went up.

"O, I see," he said a trifle coolly, "Blackmail!"

Four large fat hands went up simultaneously in a gesture of horror and two shocked voices burst forth as one.

"Sh--h--h! My dear young friend! What an ugly word!"

"We are humble helpers in the cause of justice! _Most_ ugly word!"

"Find it rather dangerous, don't you?" pursued Laroque in the same tone.

"We do not!" came the reply in chorus, baritone and bass.

"Pays, does it?"

Again the four plump hands went up.

"Pay! My dear Laroque, I should think it did!" cried Perissard. "You will very soon find out for yourself how well it pays for I propose paying you--in addition to your salary--ten per cent upon the profits! You won't find it hard work and you won't find it difficult. Quickness, discretion and tact are all that are required. I know you pretty well, my dear friend. You are intelligent and energetic and I'm sure you are honest! Not too scrupulously so at all times--but--ah--you understand!"

"Scruples are out of date," groaned M. Merivel, shaking his head gloomily, "_Ne quid nimis_--the Latin again--ahem!"

"And you are fond of money!" went on the spokesman.

Laroque smiled and nodded.

"Well, then! You shall have the money!" declared M. Perissard. Word, look and tone were those of a true philanthropist.

"It's a tempting offer," admitted the adventurer rubbing his chin, reflectively; "but, you know, I was sometime getting out of----It has not been many years since I was in trouble and I don't want any more trouble if I can help it."

"What possible trouble can there be?" M. Perissard protested.

"Well, you know, even a lamb will bleat if you handle him roughly."

"Our little lambkins don't!" the older man as? sured him with an oily, paternal smile in which his confrère nobly seconded him. "They have a horror of all kinds of fuss and do net draw attentions to themselves if they can help it."

"The fear of a fuss is the beginning of wisdom!" rose from M. Merivel's diaphragm in oracular thunder.

"So there is nothing to be afraid of! Our head office is in Paris," resumed M. Perissard, "But I have come to Bordeaux to open a branch office of which M. Merivel will be temporary manager. In a little while, when you understand our methods thoroughly, he will go to Marseilles and leave you in charge. Then we will double your salary and increase your share of the profits to fifteen per cent!"

Laroque wavered a moment, then suddenly straightened up to his feet and held out his hand.

"It's a bargain!" he said.