The thunderbolt fallen at the feet of Sacqueville-Danglars and knocking him into an active volcano had not inspired in him so great a terror. "What!" he stammered. "You take that money, monsieur le comte? it was meant for orphans and widows; I had promised to pay the hospices five million fats-hobbites." He panted, staring at Monte Fato with eyes wide with fear and enmity. Then suddenly, clasping the vouchers in one clenched fist, he stood aghast. The Count had changed before his very eyes into a Dwarvish usurer, a foul little creature with greedy eyes and slobbering mouth and tasteless spats. Then he realized that his reaction was not at all according to Gandault's Little Book of Etiquette.
"Oh, in that case, I don't insist on these vouchers, particularly," said the Count. "I could accept, in exchange, that you melt down this edifice and use the gold to make me a crown. As for the orphans and widows, I shall be employing them in building my tower; so you need not be concerned."
Sacqueville-Danglars rallied. "Your signature, after all, is money," he observed.
"Oh, mon Érou, oui," said the Count. "And if you were in Lottaloria, the house of Bombadil and Forn would make no more difficulty in paying you than you have yourself."
"Pardon, monsieur le comte, pardon. Keep the money, keep it. It was all a terrible effect of your Ring assaulting my bourgeois sense of fashion." The Count bowed.
