"I should like the five thousand pounds, please," said Tinker, brought
back by the touch of earth from his aerial dreams to cold reality.
"Five thousand pounds!" cried the financier, every faculty alert at the
mention of money. "No, no! How am I to get five thousand pounds?
Five hundred now! Five hundred pounds is an enormous sum--an enormous
sum for a little boy, or even fifty! Yes, yes; fifty!"
"That's really very tiresome," said Tinker very gently. "I never
thought you'd be so foolish as to leave all that money in empty rooms
in an hotel. Well, well, we must fly straight back and get it. I hope
we shall have as good luck as we had coming over." And he turned to
the levers.
"Here! here! here!" screamed the financier; tore a button off his coat
in his haste to get at his breast pocket; whipped out his notecase, and
with trembling fingers took five notes from the bundle which stuffed
it, and thrust them into Tinker's hand.
Tinker counted them, made sure that each was for a thousand pounds, and
put them in his pocket. Then he looked down at the gendarme, and said
in French:
"I want to drop my assistant. Will you conduct him to the bottom of
the tower?"
"Mais oui! Avec plaisir, Monsieur le Comte!" cried the gendarme,
striking himself hard on the chest to show his eager enthusiasm.
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