ard. One word more, and I discharge you!"
Stupor nailed me to the floor when I heard them. Discharge me--_me!_ and
my four years' arrears, and my seven thousand francs of money lent!

As though he could read my thought before it was put into words, the
governor replied that all accounts were going to be settled, mine
included. "And as to that," he added, "summon these gentlemen to my
private room. I have important news to announce to them."

Upon that, he went into his office, banging the doors.

That devil of a man! In vain you may know him to the core--know him a
liar, a comedian--he manages always to get the better of you with his
stories. My account, mine!--mine! I was so affected by the thought that
my legs seemed to give way beneath me as I went to inform the staff.

According to the regulations, there are twelve of us employed at the
Territorial Bank, including the governor and the handsome Moessard,
manager of _Financial Truth_; but more than half of that number were
wanting. To begin with, since _Truth_ ceased to be issued--it is two
years since its last appearance--M. Moessard has not once set foot in
the place. It seems he moves amid honours and riches, has a queen for
his mistress--a real queen--who gives him all the money he desires. Oh,
what a Babylon, this Paris! The others come from time to time to learn
whether by chance anything new has happened at the bank; and, as nothing
ever has, we remain weeks without seeing them. Four or five faithful
ones, all poor old men like myself, persist in putting in an appearance
regularly every morning at the same hour, from habit, from want of
occupation, not knowing what else to do. Every one, however, busies
himself about things quite foreign to the work of the office. A man must
live, you know. And then, too, one cannot pass the day dragging one's
self from easy chair to easy chair, from window to window, to look out
of doors (eight windows fronting on the Boulevard). So one tries to do
some work as best one can. I myself, as I have said, keep the accounts
of Mme. Seraphine, and of another cook in the building. Also, I write
my memoirs, which, again, takes a good deal of my time. Our receipt
clerk--one who has not very hard work with us--makes line for a firm
that deals in fishing requisites. Of our two copying-clerks, one,
who writes a good hand, copies plays for a dramatic agency; the other
invents little halfpenny toys which the hawkers sell at street corners