A letter was brought to us--one of many, already received!--insisting
on immediate payment of a debt that had been too long unsettled. The
detestable subject of our poverty insisted on claiming attention when
there was a messenger outside, waiting for my poor Harry's last French
bank note.
"What is to be done?" I said, when we were left by ourselves again.
My husband's composure was something wonderful. He laughed and lit a
cigar.
"We have got to the crisis," he said. "The question of money has driven
us into a corner at last. My darling, have you ever heard of such a
thing as a promissory note?"
I was not quite so ignorant as he supposed me to be; I said I had heard
my father speak of promissory notes.
This seemed to fail in convincing him. "Your father," he remarked,
"used to pay his notes when they fell due."
I betrayed my ignorance, after all. "Doesn't everybody do the same?" I
asked.
He burst out laughing. "We will send the maid to get a bit of stamped
paper," he said; "I'll write the message for her, this time."
Those last words alluded to Fanny's ignorance of the French language,
which made it necessary to provide her with written instructions, when
she was sent on an errand. In our domestic affairs, I was able to do
this; but, in the present case, I only handed the message to her. When
she returned with a slip of stamped paper, Harry called to me to come
to the writing-table.
"Now, my sweet," he said, "see how easily money is to be got with a
scratch of the pen."
I looked, over his shoulder. In less than a minute it was done; and he
had produced ten thousand francs on paper--in English money (as he told
me), four hundred pounds. This seemed to be a large loan; I asked how
he proposed to pay it back. He kindly reminded me that he was a
newspaper proprietor, and, as such, possessed of the means of inspiring
confidence in persons with money to spare. They could afford, it seems,
to give him three months in which to arrange for repayment. In that
time, as he thought, the profits of the new journal might come pouring
in. He knew best, of course.
We took the next train to Paris, and turned our bit of paper into notes
and gold. Never was there such a delightful companion as my husband,
when he has got money in his pocket. After so much sorrow and anxiety,
for weeks past, that memorable afternoon was like a glimpse of
Paradise.