he inventory shall
we know the truth, and whether the year, which seems to have been
prosperous, has really been so.

The account of stock is usually taken late in December, between
Christmas and New Year's Day. As it requires much extra labor to prepare
it, everybody works far into the night. The whole establishment is
alert. The lamps remain lighted in the offices long after the doors are
closed, and seem to share in the festal atmosphere peculiar to that
last week of the year, when so many windows are illuminated for family
gatherings. Every one, even to the least important 'employe' of the
firm, is interested in the results of the inventory. The increases of
salary, the New Year's presents, depend upon those blessed figures. And
so, while the vast interests of a wealthy house are trembling in the
balance, the wives and children and aged parents of the clerks, in their
fifth-floor tenements or poor apartments in the suburbs, talk of nothing
but the inventory, the results of which will make themselves felt
either by a greatly increased need of economy or by some purchase, long
postponed, which the New Year's gift will make possible at last.

On the premises of Fromont Jeune and Risler Aine, Sigismond Planus is
the god of the establishment at that season, and his little office a
sanctuary where all the clerks perform their devotions. In the silence
of the sleeping factory, the heavy pages of the great books rustle as
they are turned, and names called aloud cause search to be made in other
books. Pens scratch. The old cashier, surrounded by his lieutenants, has
a businesslike, awe-inspiring air. From time to time Fromont Jeune, on
the point of going out in his carriage, looks in for a moment, with a
cigar in his mouth, neatly gloved and ready for the street. He walks
slowly, on tiptoe, puts his face to the grating:

"Well!--are you getting on all right?"

Sigismond gives a grunt, and the young master takes his leave, afraid to
ask any further questions. He knows from the cashier's expression that
the showing will be a bad one.

In truth, since the days of the Revolution, when there was fighting in
the very courtyard of the factory, so pitiable an inventory never
had been seen in the Fromont establishment. Receipts and expenditures
balanced each other. The general expense account had eaten up
everything, and, furthermore, Fromont Jeune was indebted to the firm
in a large sum. You should have seen old Planus's air of