d. He has only himself to thank for
his misfortune. Everything would have gone well but for his treachery.
We would have become affluent, he and I and Theodore. Theodore has
gone to live with his mother, who has a fish-stall in the Halles; she
gives him three sous a day for washing down the stall and selling the
fish when it has become too odorous for the ordinary customers.

And he might have had five hundred francs for himself and remained my
confidential clerk.

CHAPTER IV

CARISSIMO

1.

You must not think for a moment, my dear Sir, that I was ever actually
deceived in Theodore. Was it likely that I, who am by temperament and
habit accustomed to read human visages like a book, was it likely, I
say, that I would fail to see craftiness in those pale, shifty eyes,
deceit in the weak, slobbering mouth, intemperance in the whole aspect
of the shrunken, slouchy figure which I had, for my subsequent sorrow,
so generously rescued from starvation?

Generous? I was more than generous to him. They say that the poor are
the friends of the poor, and I told you how poor we were in those
days! Ah! but poor! my dear Sir, you have no conception! Meat in Paris
in the autumn of 1816 was 24 francs the kilo, and milk 1 franc the
quarter litre, not to mention eggs and butter, which were delicacies
far beyond the reach of cultured, well-born people like myself.

And yet throughout that trying year I fed Theodore--yes, I fed him.
He used to share onion pie with me whenever I partook of it, and he
had haricot soup every day, into which I allowed him to boil the skins
of all the sausages and the luscious bones of all the cutlets of which
I happened to partake. Then think what he cost me in drink! Never
could I leave a half or quarter bottle of wine but he would finish it;
his impudent fingers made light of every lock and key. I dared not
allow as much as a sou to rest in the pocket of my coat but he would
ferret it out the moment I hung the coat up in the outer room and my
back was turned for a few seconds. After a while I was forced--yes, I,
Sir, who have spoken on terms of equality with kings--I was forced to
go out and make my own purchases in the neighbouring provision shops.
And why? Because if I sent Theodore and gave him a few sous wherewith
to make these purchases, he would spend the money at the nearest
cabaret in getting drunk on absinthe.

He robbed me, Sir, shamefully, despite the fact that he had ten per
cen