The Confusion

“Heavens! Where is this dough?” Etienne demanded-a bit confused, for in the first run-through, he had been given actual silver.

“I don’t have any just now,” said “Castan,” who had been a bit quicker than Etienne to see where this was going, “but my friend Monsieur Bernard has heard from Monsieur le comte de Pontchartrain who has heard from Mercury himself that there is dough aplenty, and so, in the sight of all these good Lyonnaise-”

“We call them le Depot,” put in Eliza, indicating several persons who had gathered round the basset-table to watch.

“-I say that I shall pay you a hundred and ten pieces of dough any day now.”

“Very well,” said “Lothar,” after looking up at Eliza for permission.

Now some time was spent in draughting the necessary papers. Meanwhile Eliza had thrust her hands into a great warm ellipsoid of bread-dough that had been fetched out of the kitchens by a cook, and torn it apart into two pieces, a small and a large. The small she placed in an empty fruit-bowl, which she took into the Grand Salon and slammed down on a gilded sideboard near the backgammontable, astonishing Madame de Bearsul. “Tear this in half, and continue tearing the halves in half, until you have thirty-two pieces of dough,” decreed “Mercury,” then stormed away before de Bearsul could pout or fret. Eliza fetched the great bowl containing the larger amount of dough, and set it into the arms of the young banker she had posted in “Amsterdam.” Three younger guests, eight to twelve years of age, had already converged on the sideboard, overturned the fruit-bowl, and begun tearing the dough into bits. “Very good, you are the English Mint, and that is the Tower of London,” Eliza informed them. Then, because they were being a bit too enthusiastic, she cautioned them: “Remember, I desire only thirty or so.”

“We thought a hundred!” said the oldest of the children.

“Yes; but there is not enough dough in London to make so many.”

By now the paperwork had been settled in “Lyon.” A new wrinkle had been added: this time, “Lothar” made the Bill out, not to “Dubois” but to “Castan,” who was sitting across the table from him. “Castan” then had to flip it over and write on the back that he was transferring the Bill to Monsieur Dubois. It was due in fifteen minutes. “Castan,” handed it to “Dubois” on the outskirts of “Lyon” at 4:12 and “Dubois,” after a detour for a thimble of cognac, arrived in “London” at 4:14 and handed it to “Punchinello,” who compared it as before to the avisa, and checked the time. She was just about to write “accepted” across it when ever-diligent “Mercury” stayed her hand.

“Stop! Think. Your solvency, your credit hang in the balance. How many pieces of dough do you have?”

The eyes of “Punchinello” strayed towards the “Tower of London,” where thirty-two dough-balls were arrayed eight by four.

“Those don’t belong to you,” said Mercury. She scooped them into the fruit-bowl and handed it to the Lavardac cousin who was pretending to be Lothar’s factor in London.

Madame de Bearsul was starting to get it. “I’m going to be needing those-I’ve a note from your uncle, right here, says you owe me a hundred.”

“I don’t have a hundred!” complained the young banker.

“Mercury comes to the rescue, as usual!” announced Eliza. “Does anyone else here in London have dough?”

“I’ve got a great bowl of it,” said an adolescent voice from the next room.

“You’re not in London!” answered “Mercury.” And she turned to the “London” nephew and gave him an expectant look.

“Cousin! Come in here and bring me some of the family dough!” he called.

The young man with the dough-bowl staggered into the room. Whereupon Eliza gave the nod to a pair of six-year-old boys who had been crouching in a corner with wooden swords. They rushed out and began to batter the dough-bearer about the shins and ankles. “Augh!” he cried.

“Pirate attack in the North Sea!” Eliza announced.

The dough-carrier was hindered badly by his inability to see the little boca-neers, for the bowl blocked his view. Nevertheless, after having been chased several times around the entirety of Britain, he arrived in port some minutes later (4:20) listing badly to starboard, and upended the bowl, dumping out the dough-load at the Tower of London. “Hurry!” said Eliza, “only five minutes remaining until the Bill expires!”