as he talked,
and to this, I am obliged to own, I looked as my last hope of being rid
of him. I placed every bottle I possessed on the table, and, lighting my
cigar, resigned myself, with what patience I could, to the result.

"Am I keeping you up, my dear Digby?" cried he, at last, after a burst
of abuse on Fiume and all it contained that lasted about half an hour.

"I seldom sit up so late," was my cautious reply; "but I must own I have
seldom such a good excuse."

"You hit it, boy; that was well and truly spoken. As a talker of the
highest order of talk, I yield to no man in Europe. Do you remember
Duvergier saying in the Chambre, as an apology for being late, 'I dined
with DeMarsac'?"

"I cannot say I remember that."

"How could you? You were an infant at the time." Away he went after this
into reminiscences of political life,--how deep he was in that Spanish
marriage question, and how it caused a breach,--an irreparable breach
between Guizot and himself, when that woman, "you know whom I mean, let
out the secret to Bulwer. Of course I ought not to have confided it to
her. I know all that as well as you can tell it me, but who is wise, who
is guarded, who is self-possessed at all times?"

Not entirely trustful of what he was telling me, and little interested
in it besides, I brought him back to Fiume, and to the business that was
now about to be confided to me.

"Ah, very true; you want your instructions. You shall have them,
not that you 'll need them long, _mon cher_. Six months--what am I
saying?--three will see it all up with; Hodnig and Oppovich."

"What do you mean?" cried I, eagerly.

"Just simply what I say."

It was not very easy for me to follow him here, but I could gather,
amidst a confused mass of self-glorification, prediction, and
lamentation over warnings disregarded, and such like, that the great Jew
house of "Nathanheimer" of Paris was the real head of the firm of Hodnig
and Oppovich.

"The Nathanheimers own all Europe and a very considerable share of
America," burst he out "You hear of a great wine-house at Xeres, or a
great corn-merchant at Odessa, or a great tallow-exporter at Riga.
It's all Nathanheimer! If a man prospers and shows that he has skill in
business, they 'll stand by him, even to millions. If he blunders, they
sweep him away, as I brush away that cork. There must be no failures
with _them_. That's their creed."

He proceeded to explain how these great potentates of f