res--I had to light
them myself every morning; to remain in the anteroom and show clients
in--he was never at his post. In fact he was never there when I did
want him: morning, noon and night he was out--gadding about and coming
home, Sir, only to eat and sleep. I was seriously thinking of giving
him the sack. And then one day he disappeared! Yes, Sir, disappeared
completely as if the earth had swallowed him up. One morning--it was
in the beginning of December and the cold was biting--I arrived at the
office and found that his chair-bed which stood in the antechamber had
not been slept in; in fact that it had not been made up overnight. In
the cupboard I found the remnants of an onion pie, half a sausage, and
a quarter of a litre of wine, which proved conclusively that he had
not been in to supper.

At first I was not greatly disturbed in my mind. I had found out quite
recently that Theodore had some sort of a squalid home of his own
somewhere behind the fish-market, together with an old and wholly
disreputable mother who plied him with drink whenever he spent an
evening with her and either he or she had a franc in their pocket.
Still, after these bouts spent in the bosom of his family he usually
returned to sleep them off at my expense in my office.

I had unfortunately very little to do that day, so in the late
afternoon, not having seen anything of Theodore all day, I turned my
steps toward the house behind the fish-market where lived the mother
of that ungrateful wretch.

The woman's surprise when I inquired after her precious son was
undoubtedly genuine. Her lamentations and crocodile tears certainly
were not. She reeked of alcohol, and the one room which she inhabited
was indescribably filthy. I offered her half a franc if she gave me
authentic news of Theodore, knowing well that for that sum she would
have sold him to the devil. But very obviously she knew nothing of his
whereabouts, and I soon made haste to shake the dirt of her abode from
my heels.

I had become vaguely anxious.

I wondered if he had been murdered somewhere down a back street, and
if I should miss him very much.

I did not think that I would.

Moreover, no one could have any object in murdering Theodore. In his
own stupid way he was harmless enough, and he certainly was not
possessed of anything worth stealing. I myself was not over-fond of
the man--but I should not have bothered to murder him.

Still, I was undoubtedly anxious, and