n attempt is made to secure his
name for one of our lists, and, in case of resistance, if he wishes to
subscribe neither to the Paoli monument nor to Corsican railways, these
gentlemen deal him what they call--my pen blushes to write it--what they
call, I say, "the drayman thrust."

Here is what it is: We always keep at the office a parcel prepared in
advance, a well-corded case which arrives nominally from the railway
station while the visitor is present. "There are twenty francs carriage
to pay," says the one among us who brings the thing in. (Twenty francs,
sometimes thirty, according to the appearance of the patient.) Every
one then begins to ransack his pockets: "Twenty francs carriage! but I
haven't got it." "Nor I either. What a nuisance!" Some one runs to the
cash-till. Closed. The cashier is summoned. He is out. And the gruff
voice of the drayman, growing impatient in the antechamber: "Come, come,
make haste." (It is generally I who play the drayman, because of the
strength of my vocal organs.) What is to be done now? Return the parcel?
That will vex the governor. "Gentlemen, I beg, will you permit me,"
ventures the innocent victim, opening his purse. "Ah, monsieur,
indeed--" He hands over his twenty francs, he is ushered to the door,
and, as soon as his heel is turned, we all divide the fruit of the
crime, laughing like highway robbers.

Fie! M. Passajon. At your age, such a trade! Eh! _mon Dieu!_ I well know
it. I know that I should do myself more honour in quitting this evil
place. But what! You would have me then renounce the hope of getting
back anything of all I have put in here. No, it is not possible. There
is urgent need on the contrary that I should remain, that I should be
on the watch, always at hand, ready to profit by any windfall, if one
should come. Oh, for example, I swear it upon my ribbon, upon my thirty
years of academical service, if ever an affair like this of the Nabob
allow me to recover my disbursements, I shall not wait another single
minute. I shall quickly be off to look after my pretty vineyard down
yonder, near Monbars, cured forever of my thoughts of speculation. But,
alas! that is a very chimerical hope. Exhausted, used up, known as we
are upon the Paris market, with our stocks which are no longer quoted on
the Bourse, our bonds which are near being waste paper, so many lies, so
many debts, and the hole that grows ever deeper and deeper. (We owe
at this moment three million five