stration: Fig. 8--One of the loose sheets upon which Mabel Parker
illustrated her methods and her skill as a penman to the supposed
ex-convict "Hickey."]

II

Five Hundred Million Dollars

This story, which ends in New York, begins in the Department of the
Gironde at the town of Monsegur, seventy-five kilometers from Bordeaux,
in the little vineyard of Monsieur Emile Lapierre--"landowner." In 1901
Lapierre was a happy and contented man, making a good living out of his
modest farm. To-day he is--well, if you understand the language of the
Gironde, he will tell you with a shrug of his broad shoulders that he
might have been a Monte Cristo had not _le bon Dieu_ willed it
otherwise. For did he not almost have five hundred million dollars--two
and a half _milliards_ of francs--in his very hands? _Hein_? But he did!
Does M'sieu' have doubts? Nevertheless it is all true. _C'est trop
vrai_! Is M'sieu' tired? And would he care to hear the story? There is a
comfortable chair _sous le grand arbre_ in front of the veranda, and
Madame will give M'sieu' a glass of wine from the presses, across the
road. Yes, it _is_ good wine, but there is little profit in it, when one
thinks in _milliards_.

The landowner lights his pipe and seats himself cross-legged against the
trunk of the big chestnut. Back of the house the vineyard slopes away
toward the distant woods in straight, green, trellised alleys. A dim
haze hangs over the landscape sleeping so quietly in the midsummer
afternoon. Down the road comes heavily, creaking and swaying, a wain
loaded with a huge tower of empty casks and drawn by two oxen, their
heads swinging to the dust. Yes, it is hard to _comprendre_ twenty-five
hundred million francs.

It was this way. Madame Lapierre was a Tessier of Bordeaux--an ancient
_bourgeois_ family, and very proud indeed of being _bourgeois_. You can
see her passing and repassing the window if you watch carefully the
kitchen, where she is superintending dinner. The Tessiers have always
lived in Bordeaux and they are connected by marriage with
everybody--from the blacksmith up to the Mayor's notary. Once a Tessier
was Mayor himself. Years and years ago Madame's great-uncle Jean had
emigrated to America, and from time to time vague rumors of the wealth
he had achieved in the new country reached the ears of his
relatives--but no direct word ever came.

Then one hot day--like this--appeared M. le General. He came walking
down the road