a tontine," said the lean little old man; his
sinews were wiry, and his eye bright.

"Does heat disagree with you?"

"Quite the contrary."

"What do you say to Africa?"

"A very nice country!--The French went there with the little Corporal"
(Napoleon).

"To get us all out of the present scrape, you must go to Algiers,"
said the Baron.

"And how about my business?"

"An official in the War Office, who has to retire, and has not enough
to live on with his pension, will buy your business."

"And what am I to do in Algiers?"

"Supply the Commissariat with victuals, corn, and forage; I have your
commission ready filled in and signed. You can collect supplies in the
country at seventy per cent below the prices at which you can credit
us."

"How shall we get them?"

"Oh, by raids, by taxes in kind, and the Khaliphat.--The country is
little known, though we settled there eight years ago; Algeria
produces vast quantities of corn and forage. When this produce belongs
to Arabs, we take it from them under various pretences; when it
belongs to us, the Arabs try to get it back again. There is a great
deal of fighting over the corn, and no one ever knows exactly how much
each party has stolen from the other. There is not time in the open
field to measure the corn as we do in the Paris market, or the hay as
it is sold in the Rue d'Enfer. The Arab chiefs, like our Spahis,
prefer hard cash, and sell the plunder at a very low price. The
Commissariat needs a fixed quantity and must have it. It winks at
exorbitant prices calculated on the difficulty of procuring food, and
the dangers to which every form of transport is exposed. That is
Algiers from the army contractor's point of view.

"It is a muddle tempered by the ink-bottle, like every incipient
government. We shall not see our way through it for another ten years
--we who have to do the governing; but private enterprise has sharp
eyes.--So I am sending you there to make a fortune; I give you the
job, as Napoleon put an impoverished Marshal at the head of a kingdom
where smuggling might be secretly encouraged.

"I am ruined, my dear Fischer; I must have a hundred thousand francs
within a year."

"I see no harm in getting it out of the Bedouins," said the Alsatian
calmly. "It was always done under the Empire----"

"The man who wants to buy your business will be here this morning, and
pay you ten thousand francs down," the Baron went on. "That will be
enough, I suppo