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head a most vehement toss. The word being, according to its
Genoese emphasis, a confirmation, a contradiction, an assertion, a
denial, a taunt, a compliment, a joke, and fifty other things,
became in the present instance, with a significance beyond all
power of written expression, our familiar English 'I believe you!'

'Haha! You are right! A gentleman I am! And a gentleman I'll
live, and a gentleman I'll die! It's my intent to be a gentleman.
It's my game. Death of my soul, I play it out wherever I go!'

He changed his posture to a sitting one, crying with a triumphant
air:

'Here I am! See me! Shaken out of destiny's dice-box into the
company of a mere smuggler;--shut up with a poor little contraband
trader, whose papers are wrong, and whom the police lay hold of
besides, for placing his boat (as a means of getting beyond the
frontier) at the disposition of other little people whose papers
are wrong; and he instinctively recognises my position, even by
this light and in this place. It's well done! By Heaven! I win,
however the game goes.'

Again his moustache went up, and his nose came down.

'What's the hour now?' he asked, with a dry hot pallor upon him,
rather difficult of association with merriment.

'A little half-hour after mid-day.'

'Good! The President will have a gentleman before him soon. Come!

Shall I tell you on what accusation? It must be now, or never, for
I shall not return here. Either I shall go free, or I shall go to
be made ready for shaving. You know where they keep the razor.'

Signor Cavalletto took his cigarette from between his parted lips,
and showed more momentary discomfiture than might have been
expected.

'I am a'--Monsieur Rigaud stood up to say it--'I am a cosmopolitan
gentleman. I own no particular country. My father was Swiss--
Canton de Vaud. My mother was French by blood, English by birth.
I myself was born in Belgium. I am a citizen of the world.'

His theatrical air, as he stood with one arm on his hip within the
folds of his cloak, together with his manner of disregarding his
companion and addressing the opposite wall instead, seemed to
intimate that he was rehearsing for the President, whose
examination he was shortly to undergo, rather than troubling
himself merely to enlighten so small a person as John Baptist
Cavalletto.

'Call me five-and-thirty years of age. I have seen the world. I
have lived here, and lived there, and lived like a gentleman
everywhere. I have been treated and respected as a gentleman
universally. If you try to prejudice me by making out that I have
lived by my wits--how do your lawyers live--your politicians--your
intriguers--your men of the Exchange?'

He kept his small smooth hand in constant requisition, as if it
were a witness to his gentility that had often done him good
service before.

'Two years ago I came to Marseilles. I admit that I was poor; I
had been ill. When your lawyers, your politicians, your
intriguers, your men of the Exchange fall ill, and have not scraped

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