The Confusion

“Well, if they are not of independent means, it would seem to suggest that-” and here Etienne colored slightly again, “forgive me, but must I-” and he balked until both Eliza and Pontchartrain had made encouraging faces at him, “well, pay them-” he half-swallowed the dreadful word-“I don’t know, so that they could-buy-food and whatnot, presuming that’s how they get it? For I don’t phant’sy they would have their own farms, living as they do in cities.”

“You must pay them!” Eliza said loud and clear.

Etienne winced. “Well, it hardly seems worth all the bother for me to be taking in silver here, and sending Bills to one place, and avisas to another, all so that I can end up handing the silver over to Signore Punchinello in the end.” He scanned nearby faces uncertainly, taking a sort of poll-but everyone was nodding profoundly, as if the duc d’Arcachon had made a telling point. All of those faces now turned towards Eliza.

“You get to keep some of the money,” Eliza said.

Everyone gasped as if she had jerked the veil from a statue of solid gold.

“Oh, well, that puts it in a whole new light!” exclaimed Etienne.

“The amount collected by Pierre Dubois in London was not quite as large as what I gave to you,” said Pontchartrain. He then turned to look at Eliza. “But, madame, I live in Paris.”

Eliza went into the opposite corner of the Petit Salon and patted a gilded harpsichord. Pontchartrain excused himself from Lyon and sat before it. Then, to amuse himself and to provide incidental music for the second act of the masque, he began to pick out an air by Rameau.

Eliza beckoned to a middle-aged Count dressed in the uniform of a galley-captain. Until recently, he and a friend had been playing at billiards. “You are Monsieur Samuel Bernard, moneylender to le Roi.”

“I am to portray a Jew!?” said the dismayed Count.

The music faltered. “He is an excellent fellow, the King speaks highly of him, monsieur,” said Pontchartrain, and resumed playing.

“But now there is no one in Lyon!” said Etienne.

“On the contrary, there is Monsieur Castan, an old confrere of Monsieur Bernard,” said Eliza, and dragged the Count’s erstwhile billiards-opponent over to occupy the chair warmed by Pontchartrain.

Lately the room had become a good bit louder, for the galley-captain playing Samuel Bernard had adopted a hunchbacked posture and begun rolling his eyes, leering at the ladies, and stroking his chin. Meanwhile the “Amsterdam” and “London” crowd, which consisted mostly of younger people, had become restive, and begun to engage in all sorts of unauthorized Transactions.

“Fetch me a bowl of dough,” Eliza said to a maid.

“Dough, madame?”

“Dough from the kitchen! And an empty fruit-bowl or something. Hurry!” The servant hustled out. “Places, everyone! Act the Second begins. Monsieur le comte de Pontchartrain, pray continue playing your beautiful music, it is entirely fitting.” Indeed, some of the guests who had not been assigned specific roles had begun dancing to it, so that “Paris” had already become a center of beauty, culture, and romance.

“I am your servant, madame,” said Pontchartrain.

“No, I am Mercury. And I say you have dough!”

“Dough, Mercury?” Pontchartrain looked about curiously but continued to play.

“You rarely see it, of course, and you never handle it. Pourquoi non, for you are a member of the Conseil d’en-Haut and a trusted confidant of le Roi Soleil. But you know that you have dough!”

“How do I know it, Mercury?”

“Because I have whispered it into your ear. You have a thousand kitchens in which it is being prepared, all the time. Now, call Monsieur Bernard to your side, and let him know.”

Monsieur Bernard did not need to be summoned. Using his billiard-cue as cane, he staggered over-for he had perfected his Jew act-and bent close to Pontchartrain, rubbing his hands together.

“Monsieur Bernard! I have dough.”

“I believe it, monseigneur.”

“I should like to see, oh, a hundred pieces of dough transferred safely and swiftly to the hands of Monsieur Dubois in London.”

“Hold!” commanded Mercury, “you do not yet know the identity of your payee in London.”

“Very well-make the Bill endorsable to one of my agents, to be determined later.”

“It shall be done, my lord!” announced “Bernard,” who then leered up at Eliza for his cue.

“Go and tell your friend,” Eliza said.

“Don’t I get anything?”

“Monsieur! You have got the word of the controleur-general of France! What more could you possibly ask for?”

“I was just asking,” said “Bernard” a little bit resentfully, and then crab-walked across the Petit Salon to “Lyon,” where his billiards-partner awaited. “Mon vieux, bonjour. Monsieur le comte de Pontchartrain has dough and wants a hundred pieces of it in London.”

“Very well,” said “Castan” after some sotto voce prompting from Mercury. “Lothar, if you would get a hundred pieces of dough to our man in London, I shall give you a hundred and ten pieces of dough here.”