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I am the most miserable of God's creatures."
"It is an accident that might happen to any one," I said gently. "You
were nervous. You looked at the cards, you mistook the nine for a ten,
in which case you were right to call for another card."
"It is not that," he wailed. "It is the spoiling of my combination, on
which I have wasted sleepless nights. A curse on my mad folly. Do you
know who the banker was?"
"No," said I.
"He was Captain Vauvenarde, the husband of Madame Brandt."

CHAPTER XIII
You could have knocked me down with a feather. It is a trite metaphor,
I know; but it is none the less excellent. I repeat, therefore,
unblushingly--you could have knocked me down with a feather. I gasped.
The little man wiped his eyes. He was the tearfullest adult I have ever
met, and I once knew an Italian _prima donna_ with a temperament.
"Captain Vauvenarde? The man with the shoebrush hair and the rolls of
fat at the back of his neck? Are you sure?"
The dwarf nodded. "I set out from England to find him.


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