the
thirty thousand francs, after endorsing the bills?--It was bad enough to
see them signed by such a man as you!--"

"Come to the bottom of your little garden, Father Fischer," said the
important man. "You are hearty?" he went on, sitting down under a vine
arbor and scanning the old man from head to foot, as a dealer in human
flesh scans a substitute for the conscription.

"Ay, hearty enough for 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
sm