书城外语Other People's Money
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第121章

He spent all his money, and a good deal of other people's money besides. Amanda, the chambermaid, told me; and I guess she knows."

"You thought he was so rich!"

" He was. But no matter how big a bag is: if you keep taking out of it, you must get to the bottom."

"Then he spent a great deal?"

"It's incredible! I have been in extravagant houses; but nowhere have I ever seen money fly as it has during the five months that I have been in that house. A regular pillage! Everybody helped themselves; and what was not in the house, they could get from the tradespeople, have it charged on the bill; and it was all paid without a word."

"Then, yes, indeed, the money must have gone pretty lively," said the old one in a convinced tone.

"Well," replied the other, "that was nothing yet. Amanda the chambermaid who has been in the house fifteen years, told us some stories that would make you jump. She was not much for spending, Zelie; but some of the others, it seems...

It required the greatest effort on the part of Maxence and M. de Tregars not to play, but only to pretend to play, and to continue to count imaginary points, - " One, two, three, four."

Fortunately the coachman with the red nose seemed much interested.

"What others?" he asked.

"That I don't know any thing about," replied the younger valet.

"But you may imagine that there must have been more than one in that little house during the many years that M. Vincent owned it, - a man who hadn't his equal for women, and who was worth millions."

"And what was his business?"

"Don't know that, either."

"What! there were ten of you in the house, and you didn't know the profession of the man who paid you all?"

"We were all new."

"The chambermaid, Amanda, must have known."

"When she was asked, she said that he was a merchant. One thing is sure, he was a queer old chap."

So interested was the old coachman, that, seeing the punch-bowl empty, he called for another. His comrade could not fail to show his appreciation of such politeness.

"Ah, yes!" he went on, "old Vincent was an eccentric fellow; and never, to see him, could you have suspected that he cut up such capers, and that he threw money away by the handful"

"Indeed!

"Imagine a man about fifty years old, stiff as a post, with a face about as pleasant as a prison-gate. That's the boss! Summer and winter, he wore laced shoes, blue stockings, gray pantaloons that were too short, a cotton necktie, and a frock-coat that came down to his ankles. In the street, you would have taken him for a hosier who had retired before his fortune was made."

"You don't say so!"

"No, never have I seen a man look so much like an old miser. You think, perhaps, that he came in a carriage. Not a bit of it! He came in the omnibus, my boy, and outside too, for three sons; and when it rained he opened his umbrella. But the moment he had crossed the threshold of the house, presto, pass! complete change of scene. The miser became pacha. He took off his old duds, put on a blue velvet robe; and then there was nothing handsome enough, nothing good enough, nothing expensive enough for him. And, when he had acted the my lord to his heart's content, he put on his old traps again, resumed his prison-gate face, climbed up on top of the omnibus, and went off as he came."

"And you were not surprised, all of you, at such a life?"

"Very much so."

"And you did not think that these singular whims must conceal something?"

"Oh, but we did!"

"And you didn't try to find out what that something was?

"How could we?"

"Was it very difficult to follow your boss, and ascertain where he went, after leaving the house?"

"Certainly not; but what then?"

"Why," he replied, "you would have found out his secret in the end; and then you would have gone to him and told him, 'Give me so much, or I peach.'"