how much less soft their pillows
would have seemed, if Fougas had gone home with his million!

At ten o'clock the next morning, while they were taking their coffee and
buttered rolls, the president of the bank called in, and said to them:

"I am greatly obliged to you for having accepted a draft on Paris
instead of a million in specie, and without premium, too. That young
Frenchman you sent to us is a little brusque, but very lively, and a
good fellow."

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE COLONEL TRIES TO RELIEVE HIMSELF OF A MILLION WHICH INCUMBERS HIM.

Fougas had left Paris for Berlin the day after his audience. He took
three days to make the trip, because he stopped some time at Nancy. The
Marshal had given him a letter of introduction to the Prefect of
Meurthe, who received him very politely, and promised to aid him in his
investigations. Unfortunately, the house where he had loved Clementine
Pichon was no longer standing. The authorities had demolished it in
1827, in cutting a street through. It is certain that the commissioners
had not demolished the family with the house, but a new difficulty all
at once presented itself: the name of Pichon abounded in the city, the
suburbs, and the department. Among this multitude of Pichons, Fougas did
not know which one to hug. Tired of hunting, and eager to hasten forward
on, the road to fortune, he left this note for the commissioner of
police:

"Search, on the registers of personal statistics and elsewhere, for a
young girl named Clementine Pichon. She was eighteen years old in 1813;
her parents kept an officers' boarding-house. If she is alive, get her
address; if she is dead, look up her heirs. A father's happiness depends
upon it!"

On reaching Berlin, the Colonel found that his reputation had preceded
him. The note from the Minister of War had been sent to the Prussian
Government through the French legation; Leon Renault, despite his grief,
had found time to write a word to Doctor Hirtz; the papers had begun to
talk, and the scientific societies to bestir themselves. The Prince
Regent, even, had not disdained to ask information on the subject from
his physician. Germany is a queer country, where science interests the
very princes.

Fougas, who had read Doctor Hirtz's letter annexed to Herr Meiser's
will, thought that he owed some acknowledgments to that excellent
gentleman. He made a call upon him, and embraced him, addressing him as
the oracle of Epidaurus. The do