Can you tell me what is the expense of the augmentation ?" "One and a half per cent.

but are you likewise known at the Tour-du-Grec, for I should not like to lose my time ?" "Your doubts grieve me." Saying which, he took a pen, wrote a few words, and handed to me this order: "At sight, pay to bearer the sum of fifty gold ounces, on account of Panagiotti." He told me that the banker resided within two hundred yards of the inn, and he pressed me to go there myself.

I did not stand upon ceremony, but went to the banker who paid me the amount.

I returned to my room in which he was waiting for me, and placed the gold on the table, saying that we could now proceed together to the Tour-du-Grec, where we would complete our arrangements after the signature of a deed of agreement.

The Greek had his own carriage and horses; he gave orders for them to be got ready, and we left the inn; but he had nobly insisted upon my taking possession of the fifty ounces.
When we arrived at the Tour-du-Grec, he signed a document by which he promised to pay me two thousand ounces as soon as I should have discovered to him the process of augmenting mercury by one-fourth without injuring its quality, the amalgam to be equal to the mercury which I had sold in his presence at Portici.
He then gave me a bill of exchange payable at sight in eight days on M.
Genaro de Carlo.