about the time of the New Year, and manages by this means to keep
himself from dying of hunger during all the rest of the year. Our
cashier is the only one who does no outside work. He would believe
his honour lost if he did. He is a very proud man, who never utters a
complaint, and whose one dread is to have the appearance of being in
want of linen. Locked in his office, he is occupied from morning till
evening in the manufacture of shirt-fronts, collars, and cuffs of paper.
In this, he has attained very great skill, and his ever-dazzling linen
would deceive, if it were not that at the least movement, when he
walks, when he sits down, the stuff crackles upon him as though he had a
cardboard box under his waistcoat. Unfortunately all this paper does not
feed him; and he is so thin, has such a mien, that you ask yourself
on what he lives. Between ourselves, I suspect him of paying a visit
sometimes to my store-cupboard. He can do so with ease; for, as cashier,
he has the "word" which opens the safe with the secret lock, and I fancy
that when my back is turned he forages a little among my provisions.

These are certainly very extraordinary, very incredible internal
arrangements for a banking house. It is, however, the mere truth that
I am telling, and Paris is full of financial institutions after the
pattern of ours. Oh, if ever I publish my memoirs! But to take up the
interrupted thread of my story.

When he saw us all collected in his private room, the manager said to us
with solemnity:

"Gentlemen and dear comrades, the time of trials is ended. The
Territorial Bank inaugurates a new phase."

Upon this he commenced to speak to us of a superb _combinazione_--it is
his favourite word and he pronounces it in such an insinuating manner--a
_combinazione_ into which there was entering this famous Nabob, of whom
all the newspapers are talking. The Territorial Bank was therefore about
to find itself in a position which would enable it to acquit itself of
its obligations to its faithful servants, recognise acts of devotion,
rid itself of useless parasites. This for me, I imagine. And in
conclusion: "Prepare your statements. All accounts will be settled not
later than to-morrow." Unhappily he has so often soothed us with lying
words, that the effect of his speech was lost. Formerly these
fine promises were always swallowed. At the announcement of a new
_combinazione_, there used to be dancing, weeping for joy in the
offices,