lined complying till his
return. _En attendant_, Monsieur Germaine sallied forth, and offered a
neighboring broker an additional half per cent, on the current value
of gold for the cash. He expressed, as the cause of this sacrifice,
extreme anxiety to depart by the four o'clock _diligence_, but the
urgency aroused the broker's suspicion, and led him to request
Germaine's return in half an hour, which he required to collect the
specie.

The incautious forger went off to his hotel with the promise in his
ear, while the wary broker dropped in on the drawers of the draft to
compare notes. The result of the interview was a visit to the _bureau
de police_, whence a couple of officers were despatched to Germaine's
hotel. They entered the dandy's room in disguise, but they were not
quick enough to save from destruction several _proof impressions_ of
blank drafts, which the counterfeiter cast into the fire the moment he
heard a knock at his door. In his trunks, they found engraving tools,
a small press, various acids and a variety of inks; all of which were
duly noted and preserved, while Monsieur Germaine was committed to the
_chateau_.

In those days there were no electric wires, and as the weather became
thick and cloudy, the old-fashioned semaphore or telegraph was useless
in giving notice to the Parisian police to stop the payment of a
suspected draft, and arrest the forger's accomplice in the capital.

Soon after the mail _of that day_ from Brest reached the metropolis, a
lady of most respectable appearance, clad in mourning, presented
herself at the counter of the broker's Parisian correspondent, and
exhibiting an unquestionable draft, drew seventeen thousand francs.
From the rapidity with which the whole of this adroit scheme was
accomplished in Brest and Paris, it seems that Germaine required but
four hours to copy, engrave, print and fill up the forged bill; and
yet, so perfectly did he succeed, that when the discharged draft came
back to Brest, neither drawers, brokers, nor police could distinguish
between the true one and the false! No one had seen Germaine at work,
or could prove complicity with the lady. The mourning dame was nowhere
to be found in Paris, Brest or Marseilles; so that when I finally
quitted the _chateau_, the adroit _chevalier_ was still an inmate, but
detained only _on suspicion_!

CHAPTER XLVIII.

This charming young soldier of fortune was our room-mate for nine
months, and engaged