accounts;
but Pierre Graslin was himself the soul, and body too, of the whole
concern. His clerks, chosen from his own relations, were safe men,
intelligent and as well-trained in the work as himself. As for the
office-boy, he led the life of a truck horse,--up at five in the morning
at all seasons, and never getting to bed before eleven at night.

Graslin employed a charwoman by the day, an old peasant from Auvergne,
who did his cooking. The brown earthenware off which he ate, and the
stout coarse linen which he used, were in keeping with the character of
his food. The old woman had strict orders never to spend more than three
francs daily for the total expenses of the household. The office-boy
was also man-of-all-work. The clerks took care of their own rooms. The
tables of blackened wood, the straw chairs half unseated, the wretched
beds, the counters and desks, in short, the whole furniture of house and
office was not worth more than a thousand francs, including a colossal
iron safe, built into the wall, before which slept the man-of-all-work
with two dogs at his feet.

Graslin did not often go into society, which, however, discussed
him constantly. Two or three times a year he dined with the
receiver-general, with whom his business brought him into occasional
intercourse. He also occasionally took a meal at the prefecture; for he
had been appointed, much to his regret, a member of the Council-general
of the department--"a waste of time," he remarked. Sometimes his brother
bankers with whom he had dealings kept him to breakfast or dinner; and
he was forced also to visit his former partners, who spent their winters
in Limoges. He cared so little to keep up his relations to society that
in twenty-five years Graslin had not offered so much as a glass of water
to any one. When he passed along the street persons would nudge each
other and say: "That's Monsieur Graslin"; meaning, "There's a man
who came to Limoges without a penny and has now acquired an enormous
fortune." The Auvergnat banker was a model which more than one father
pointed out to his son, and wives had been known to fling him in the
faces of their husbands.

We can now understand the reasons that led a man who had become the
pivot of the financial machine of Limoges to repulse the various
propositions of marriage which parents never ceased to make to him. The
daughters of his partners, Messrs. Perret and Grossetete, were married
before Graslin was in a p