“Count, I cannot resist your offer. Poverty drives me to accept it. Pray give me the money, and the diamonds are yours.”
As I had nothing like that sum at my London bankers at the time, I told him I would remit him the money within a week from Austria by a draft payable at sight; but he said that he must have the money at once as he was going abroad himself, so I gave him an order on my agents here in the city, and asked them to pay him the cash on presentation of the order, and I sent my secretary to them with a private letter so that there should be no hitch. Within three hours Cellucino had received the money. Now comes the sequel, and I am sure it will astonish you.
“Nothing in this world would astonish me, Count, in the way of roguery,” I remarked, as I accepted another of his cigar
