matter: You owe me
a great deal; but it's not an even sum--there are fractions in it, and I
go in for clean transactions. Moreover, my tastes are modest. I've
enough for my wife and myself; nothing more is needed than to provide
for my son!"

"Very well," cried Meiser; "I'll charge myself with the education of the
little fellow!"

"Now, during the dozen days since I again became a citizen of the world,
there is one word that I've heard spoken everywhere. At Paris, as well
as at Berlin, people no longer speak of anything but millions; there is
no longer any talk of anything else, and everybody's mouth is full of
millions. From hearing so much said about it, I've acquired a curiosity
to know what it is. Go, fetch me out a million, and I'll give you
quittance!"

If you want to reach an approximate idea of the piercing cries which
answered him, go to the _Jardin des Plantes_ at the breakfast hour of
the birds of prey, and try to pull the meat out of their beaks. Fougas
stopped his ears and remained inexorable. Prayers, arguments,
misrepresentations, flatteries, cringings, glanced off from him like
rain from a zinc roof. But at ten o'clock at night, when he had
concluded that all concurrence was impossible, he took his hat:

"Good evening!" said he. "It's no longer a million that I must have, but
two millions, and all over. We'll go to law. I'm going to supper."

He was on the staircase, when Frau Meiser said to her husband:

"Call him back, and give him his million!"

"Are you a fool?"

"Don't be afraid."

"I can never do it!"

"Father in heaven! what blockheads men are! Monsieur! Monsieur Fougas!
Monsieur Colonel Fougas! Come up again, I pray you! We consent to all
that you require!"

"Damnation!" said he, on reentering; "you ought to have made up your
minds sooner. But after all, let's see the money!"

Frau Meiser explained to him with her tenderest voice, that poor
capitalists like themselves, were not in the habit of keeping millions
under their own lock and key.

"But you shall lose nothing by waiting, my sweet sir! To-morrow you
shall handle the amount in nice white silver; my husband will sign you a
check on the Royal Bank of Dantzic."

"But----," said the unfortunate Meiser. He signed, nevertheless, for he
had boundless confidence in the practical ingenuity of Catharine. The
old lady begged Fougas to sit down at the end of the table, and dictated
to him a receipt for two millions, in payment of a