end . . . won't you drink a glass of wine with me?'"

Marius' brow grew more and more severe:

"I have never had the honor of being received by M. de Chateaubriand.
Let us cut it short. What do you want?"

The man bowed lower at that harsh voice.

"Monsieur le Baron, deign to listen to me. There is in America, in a
district near Panama, a village called la Joya. That village is composed
of a single house, a large, square house of three stories, built of
bricks dried in the sun, each side of the square five hundred feet in
length, each story retreating twelve feet back of the story below, in
such a manner as to leave in front a terrace which makes the circuit
of the edifice, in the centre an inner court where the provisions and
munitions are kept; no windows, loopholes, no doors, ladders, ladders
to mount from the ground to the first terrace, and from the first to the
second, and from the second to the third, ladders to descend into the
inner court, no doors to the chambers, trap-doors, no staircases to the
chambers, ladders; in the evening the traps are closed, the ladders
are withdrawn carbines and blunderbusses trained from the loopholes;
no means of entering, a house by day, a citadel by night, eight hundred
inhabitants,--that is the village. Why so many precautions? because the
country is dangerous; it is full of cannibals. Then why do people go
there? because the country is marvellous; gold is found there."

"What are you driving at?" interrupted Marius, who had passed from
disappointment to impatience.

"At this, Monsieur le Baron. I am an old and weary diplomat. Ancient
civilization has thrown me on my own devices. I want to try savages."

"Well?"

"Monsieur le Baron, egotism is the law of the world. The proletarian
peasant woman, who toils by the day, turns round when the diligence
passes by, the peasant proprietress, who toils in her field, does not
turn round. The dog of the poor man barks at the rich man, the dog
of the rich man barks at the poor man. Each one for himself.
Self-interest--that's the object of men. Gold, that's the loadstone."

"What then? Finish."

"I should like to go and establish myself at la Joya. There are three
of us. I have my spouse and my young lady; a very beautiful girl. The
journey is long and costly. I need a little money."

"What concern is that of mine?" demanded Marius.

The stranger stretched his neck out of his cravat, a gesture
characteristic of the vulture, an