The Money Master, Complete. Gilbert Parker

You can as can no other, my Solon. The secret of success in such things is a good heart, a right mind, a clear intelligence and some astuteness, and you have it all. It is your task and yours only.”

      The little man’s self-respect seemed restored. He preened himself somewhat and bowed to the Judge. “I take your commands, monsieur, to obey them as heaven gives me power so to do. Shall it be tomorrow?”

      The Judge reflected a moment, then said: “Tonight would be better, but—”

      “I can do it better to-morrow morning,” interposed M. Fille, “for George Masson has a meeting here at Vilray with the avocat Prideaux at ten o’clock to sign a contract, and I can ask him to step into my office on a little affair of business. He will not guess, and I shall be armed”—the Judge frowned—“with the book of the law on such misdemeanours, and the figures of the damages,”—the Judge smiled—“and I think perhaps I can frighten him as he has never been frightened before.”

      A courage and confidence had now taken possession of the Clerk in strange contrast to his timidity and childlike manner of a few minutes before. He was now as he appeared in court, clothed with an austere authority which gave him a vicarious strength and dignity. The Judge had done his work well, and he was of those folk in the world who are not content to do even the smallest thing ill.

      Arm in arm they passed into the garden which fronted the vine-covered house, where Maitre Fille lived alone with his sister, a tiny edition of himself, who whispered and smiled her way through life.

      She smiled and whispered now in welcome to the Judge; and as she did so, the three saw Jean Jacques, laughing, and cracking his whip, drive past with his daughter beside him, chirruping to the horses; while, moody and abstracted, his wife sat silent on the backseat of the red wagon.