thout giving too much confidence, which was just as well
perhaps. His business was transacted in an apartment furnished like a
drawing-room, the walls hung with several brown, heavily-framed, oil
paintings. I don't know if they were good, but they were big, and with
their elaborate, tarnished gilt-frames had a melancholy dignity. The man
himself sat at a shining, inlaid writing table which looked like a rare
piece from a museum of art; his chair had a high, oval, carved back,
upholstered in faded tapestry; and these objects made of the costly black
Havana cigar, which he rolled incessantly from the middle to the left
corner of his mouth and back again, an inexpressibly cheap and nasty
object. I had to see him several times in the interest of a poor devil
so unlucky that he didn't even have a more competent friend than myself
to speak for him at a very difficult time in his life.

I don't know at what hour my private financier began his day, but he used
to give one appointments at unheard of times: such as a quarter to eight
in the morning, for instance. On arriving one found him busy at that
marvellous writing table, looking very fresh and alert, exhaling a faint
fragrance of scented soap and with the cigar already well alight. You
may believe that I entered on my mission with many unpleasant
forebodings; but there was in that fat, admirably washed, little man such
a profound contempt for mankind that it amounted to a species of good
nature; which, unlike the milk of genuine kindness, was never in danger
of turning sour. Then, once, during a pause in business, while we were
waiting for the production of a document for which he had sent (perhaps
to the cellar?) I happened to remark, glancing round the room, that I had
never seen so many fine things assembled together out of a collection.
Whether this was unconscious diplomacy on my part, or not, I shouldn't
like to say--but the remark was true enough, and it pleased him
extremely. "It _is_ a collection," he said emphatically. "Only I live
right in it, which most collectors don't. But I see that you know what
you are looking at. Not many people who come here on business do. Stable
fittings are more in their way."

I don't know whether my appreciation helped to advance my friend's
business but at any rate it helped our intercourse. He treated me with a
shade of familiarity as one of the initiated.

The last time I called on him to conclude the transaction we