-_Le Temps_--which had
lain forgotten on the table, uttered a slight exclamation:

"Why! your father has been appointed editor of the _Epoque_, the
prosperous republican journal which has the publishing of the papers of
the Tuileries."

This news must have been unexpected by him, for he laughed frankly, at
once pleased and saddened, and in an undertone he continued:

"My word! If things had been invented, they could not have been finer.
Life is a strange thing. This is a very interesting article."

Clotilde made no answer, as if her thoughts were a hundred leagues away
from what her uncle was saying. And he did not speak again, but taking
his scissors after he had read the article, he cut it out and pasted it
on a sheet of paper, on which he made some marginal notes in his large,
irregular handwriting. Then he went back to the press to classify this
new document in it. But he was obliged to take a chair, the shelf being
so high that he could not reach it notwithstanding his tall stature.

On this high shelf a whole series of enormous bundles of papers were
arranged in order, methodically classified. Here were papers of all
sorts: sheets of manuscript, documents on stamped paper, articles cut
out of newspapers, arranged in envelopes of strong blue paper, each of
which bore on the outside a name written in large characters. One felt
that these documents were tenderly kept in view, taken out continually,
and carefully replaced; for of the whole press, this corner was the only
one kept in order.

When Pascal, mounted on the chair, had found the package he was looking
for, one of the bulkiest of the envelopes, on which was written the name
"Saccard," he added to it the new document, and then replaced the whole
under its corresponding alphabetical letter. A moment later he had
forgotten the subject, and was complacently straightening a pile of
papers that were falling down. And when he at last jumped down off the
chair, he said:

"When you are arranging the press, Clotilde, don't touch the packages at
the top; do you hear?"

"Very well, master," she responded, for the third time, docilely.

He laughed again, with the gaiety that was natural to him.

"That is forbidden."

"I know it, master."

And he closed the press with a vigorous turn of the key, which he
then threw into a drawer of his writing table. The young girl was
sufficiently acquainted with his researches to keep his manuscripts in
some degree of orde