"I am to slip it into your pocket when you least expect it, sir. You

know that I always take a little turn behind the scenes, in the course

of the evening, and I often go with my daughter to the ballet-foyer,

which I am entitled to do, as her mother; I bring her her shoes, when

the ballet is about to begin ... in fact, I come and go as I please ...

The subscribers come and go too... So do you, sir ... There are lots

of people about ... I go behind you and slip the envelope into the

tail-pocket of your dress-coat ... There's no witchcraft about that!"

"No witchcraft!" growled Richard, rolling his eyes like Jupiter Tonans.

"No witchcraft! Why, I've just caught you in a lie, you old witch!"

Mme. Giry bristled, with her three teeth sticking out of her mouth.

"And why, may I ask?"

"Because I spent that evening watching Box Five and the sham envelope

which you put there. I did not go to the ballet-foyer for a second."

"No, sir, and I did not give you the envelope that evening, but at the

next performance ... on the evening when the under-secretary of state

for fine arts ..."

At these words, M. Richard suddenly interrupted Mme. Giry: "Yes, that's true, I remember now! The under-secretary went behind the

scenes. He asked for me. I went down to the ballet-foyer for a

moment. I was on the foyer steps ... The under-secretary and his

chief clerk were in the foyer itself. I suddenly turned around ... you

had passed behind me, Mme. Giry ... You seemed to push against me ...

Oh, I can see you still, I can see you still!"

"Yes, that's it, sir, that's it. I had just finished my little

business. That pocket of yours, sir, is very handy!"

And Mme. Giry once more suited the action to the word, She passed

behind M. Richard and, so nimbly that Moncharmin himself was impressed

by it, slipped the envelope into the pocket of one of the tails of M.

Richard's dress-coat.

"Of course!" exclaimed Richard, looking a little pale. "It's very

clever of O. G. The problem which he had to solve was this: how to do

away with any dangerous intermediary between the man who gives the

twenty-thousand francs and the man who receives it. And by far the

best thing he could hit upon was to come and take the money from my

pocket without my noticing it, as I myself did not know that it was

there. It's wonderful!"

"Oh, wonderful, no doubt!" Moncharmin agreed. "Only, you forget,

Richard, that I provided ten-thousand francs of the twenty and that

nobody put anything in my pocket!"

[1] Flash notes drawn on the "Bank of St. Farce" in France correspond

with those drawn on the "Bank of Engraving" in England.--Translator's

Note.




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