For the old Vicomte slowly stepped down as it were from his high standpoint of indifference, and allowed himself to be interested in the financier's schemes.

It was out of keeping with the attitude which my patron had assumed a few days earlier at the meeting which we had attended, and I was more than ever convinced that the Vicomte was too old and too simple to hold his own in a world of scoundrels.
The Baron led him on from one admission to another, and at last it was settled that twenty millions of francs were to be brought to the Hotel Clericy and placed in the Vicomte's keeping.

To my mind the worst part of the transaction lay in the fact that the financier had succeeded in saddling my patron with a certain moral responsibility which the old man was in no way called upon to assume.
"Then," he said, "I may safely leave the matter thus in your hands?
I may sleep to-night ?" "Ah!" replied the other.

"Yes--you may sleep, my friend." "And Monsieur shares the responsibility ?" added the upstart, turning to me.
"Of course--for all I am worth," was my reply, and I did not at the time think that even the Vicomte, whose faculties were keener in such matters, saw the sarcasm intended by the words.
"Then I am satisfied," the Baron was kind enough to say; and I thought that his low origin came suddenly to the fore in the manner in which he bowed.

A low origin is like an hereditary disease--it will bear no strain.
"By the way," he said, pausing near the door, having risen to go, "you have not told me the name of your trusted messenger." And before the Vicomte opened his lips the answer flashed across my mind.
"Charles Miste," he said..