It was the one subject talked about in the Gironde and Bordeaux--that
is, among those who had been fortunate enough to learn anything about
it. And for three years the Tessiers, their wives, their sons' wives,
and their connections, had been waiting to receive the glad tidings that
the conspirators had been put to rout and the rightful heirs reinstated.
It was some time before the good lady succeeded in convincing her
auditor that such a ridiculous fraud as she described had actually been
perpetrated. But there was M. Lapierre and there was Madame Valerie
Reddon sitting in the office as living witnesses to the fact. What
wonderful person could this General Moreno be, who could hypnotize a
hard-headed, thrifty farmer from the Gironde and a clever little French
woman from Bordeaux into believing that five hundred million dollars was
waiting for them on the other side of the Atlantic! I expressed my
surprise. Madame Reddon shrugged her sloping shoulders. Well, perhaps it
was hard for M'sieu' to believe, but then there were the proofs, the
documents, the _dossier_, and, most of all, there was the General
himself.
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