Monsieur Delamort

IV

"Now for your part, monsieur," said Delamort; "and see that you play me no tricks."

It was unlikely that he would, since were he to betray the occultist he must forego the gain he was making. Rising from his chair, he awoke the echoes of the inn with a scream that was a masterpiece of blood-curdling vociferation.

"Excellent," Delamort approved. "Repeat it."

Obediently, Grosjean emitted a second shriek more dreadful than the first. There came an excited knocking at the door.

"Don't touch me--don't touch me!" screamed Grosjean, prompted by Delamort. "Mon Dieu! I am terrified. Oh!"

With that final moan he let himself fall heavily, and from his position he winked wickedly at Delamort. The occultist now turned to the door, which he opened immediately.

"What are you doing to him?" demanded half a dozen of Grosjean's friends as they sprang into the room.

"No more than I undertook to do," Delamort replied. "I think you had better attend to him. The sight of his father has frightened him a little, but he will be all right shortly."

They hastened to the prostrate man, and raised him tenderly.

"There. He is better now," exclaimed one.

"His color is returning," announced another.

"I feared that ill would come of it," put in a third. "It is an evil thing to tamper with the dead."

"As for you," snarled a fourth, angrily shaking his fist in Delamort's face, "you ought to be hanged, you wizard."

"I am no wizard," answered Delamort, truthfully enough. "As M. Grosjean there can tell you, I have worked by perfectly natural means."

Grosjean, now feigning to recover, was giving the company an awe-inspiring account of the apparition that had visited him.

"I am punished," groaned that old scoundrel. "Never again will I laugh at spiritualism." Then to the host: "You may hand the stakes to M. Delamort," he said. "He has certainly won his wager, curse him!"

It was with an extremely ill grace that the landlord handed the occultist the package containing the money. Delamort accepted it in silence, and slipped it into his pocket. His business being thus concluded, he was on the point of taking his leave of the company, when the landlord rudely accelerated his departure by a request that he should take himself off the premises.

"I've had enough of spiritualism in my house," he swore, with a vigorous oath.

"Monsieur is a bad loser," was Delamort's cold answer, as he took the hint and his leave without further delay.

It was after his departure that old Grosjean felt the need of a glass of cognac to revive him. That was natural enough, but that he should invite several of his friends to a glass of something, at his expense, was a departure from the ordinary grasping course of his existence which occasioned them some measure of surprise.

Seeing ghosts was evidently a salutary occupation, if it could instil generosity into so mean a heart as Grosjean's. They profited by his mood, and accepted with alacrity the offer he made; and while they drank his health he fished from his pocket a golden napoleon with which to pay.

The landlord took the coin, glanced at it, and rang it on the table. It emitted a most unmusical timbre.

"It's cracked," some one suggested.

"It's bad,", the landlord stated as he handed it back to Grosjean.

"Bad?" echoed the old fellow, with a sudden pang of apprehension. "Bad? Impossible! Anyhow, here is another one."

While he was examining the coin the landlord had returned to him, he heard the second one give out the same false sound. Dim suspicion now became sickening certainty. With an oath he drew from another pocket a five-franc piece, to pay for the drink which in a moment of expansion he had offered his compeers.

"Wherever did you get those coins from, M. Grosjean?" inquired the host. "Surely some one has victimized you."

Deeper than words can tell were his rage and mortification. Yet deeper still was the old man's wisdom, for he held his peace touching the transaction by which those coins had passed into his hands.