The appeal to you is practically an appeal to Caesar.
Ministers are great, but you are greater. It is your hand to-day which
grasps the levers which guide the world."
And still the man at the table was silent. Monsieur Bardow had more to
say.
"I will tell you," he said, "what an American newspaper has done for us.
To-morrow, at twelve o'clock, ten million of dollars is due to be paid to
the agents of Prince Victor of Normandy, by the Credit Lyonnais of Paris.
To-morrow morning, the _New York Herald_, in great type, exposes as a
gigantic joke the whole affair! It will give the names of the American
citizens, and the titles which their contribution to the Royalist cause
in France is to secure. To-morrow, all New York will be convulsed with
laughter--and I do not think that that ten million dollars will be cabled
to the Credit Lyonnais."
The man at the table lifted his head. His face was the face of a man who
had been in pain.
"The two cases," he said slowly, "are not identical. The _New York
Herald_ perpetrates a huge joke upon its readers.
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