"Well," said Morton, "I must blunder through as I can."
"Are you at leisure? I'll go with you this afternoon, if you like, and call on him."
"Get him upon the races in the Austrian empire, and he will be more apt to bore you. Are you free at four o'clock?" pursued Vinal, looking at his watch.
"Very well. I'm going now to my tailor's. Every genuine American, you know, must have a new fit-out in Paris. I'll meet you at Meurice's at four, and we'll go from there to Speyer's."
Vinal had three quarters of an hour to spare. He spent a part of them in forging the next link of his chain. At four he rejoined Morton, and they walked out together.
"I think you'll like Professor Speyer," said Vinal. "I have become quite intimate with him, on the strength of a fortnight's acquaintance. He urges me to go to Hungary and Transylvania, and offered me introductions to his friends there. It would not be a bad plan for you to ask him for letters. They would not make you acquainted with the Austrian _haut ton_, but they would bring you into contact with men of his own stamp,--people of knowledge and intelligence, who could be of great service to you, and with whom you needn't be on terms of much ceremony.--Here's the place;--he lives here."
It was a lodging house on the Rue Rivoli. Vinal rang the bell. The porter appeared.
Vinal had just bribed the man to give this answer.
"That's unlucky," he said. "Well, if you like, we can come again this evening."
"I am engaged to dine this evening at Madame ----'s."
"I don't see, then, but that you will lose your chance with Speyer. Well, _fortune de guerre_. I should like to have had you see him, though."
And they walked towards the Boulevards, conversing on indifferent matters.
Whose nature is so far from doing evil That he suspects none; on whose foolish honesty My practices ride easy.--_King Lear_.
Early the next morning, Morton was writing in his room, when Vinal came in.
"Are you still bent on going off to-day?"
"I was passing last evening by Professor Speyer's lodgings, and, seeing a light at his window, went in. I told him that I had come to find him in the afternoon with an old acquaintance of mine, who was going to the Austrian provinces, and that I had advised you to ask introductions from him to his friends there. He was a good deal interested, as I knew he would be, in what I told him about the objects of your journey. 'I'm very sorry,' he said, 'that I did not see your friend, for I could have given him letters which I don't doubt would have been of great use to him. But wait a few minutes,' said he, 'and I'll write a few lines now.' Here they are," continued Vinal, giving to Morton four or five notes of introduction. "You can put them in your pocket, and use them or not, as you may find convenient."