n o'clock the following morning he rang the bell, at his friend's
house. The servant who opened the door, said: "Monsieur is busy."

Duroy had not expected to find Forestier at home. However he said:
"Tell him it is M. Duroy on important business."

In the course of five minutes he was ushered into the room in which he
had spent so happy a morning. In the place Mme. Forestier had occupied,
her husband was seated writing, while Mme. Forestier stood by the
mantelpiece and dictated to him, a cigarette between her lips.

Duroy paused upon the threshold and murmured: "I beg your pardon, I am
interrupting you."

His friend growled angrily: "What do you want again? Make haste; we are
busy."

Georges stammered: "It is nothing."

But Forestier persisted: "Come, we are losing time; you did not force
your way into the house for the pleasure of bidding us good morning."

Duroy, in confusion, replied: "No, it is this: I cannot complete my
article, and you were--so--so kind the last time that I hoped--that I
dared to come--"

Forestier interrupted with: "So you think I will do your work and that
you have only to take the money. Well, that is fine!" His wife smoked
on without interfering.

Duroy hesitated: "Excuse me. I believed--I--thought--" Then, in a clear
voice, he said: "I beg a thousand pardons, Madame, and thank you very
much for the charming article you wrote for me yesterday." Then he
bowed, and said to Charles: "I will be at the office at three o'clock."

He returned home saying to himself: "Very well, I will write it alone
and they shall see." Scarcely had he entered than he began to write,
anger spurring him on. In an hour he had finished an article, which was
a chaos of absurd matter, and took it boldly to the office. Duroy
handed Forestier his manuscript. "Here is the rest of Algeria."

"Very well, I will hand it to the manager. That will do."

When Duroy and Saint-Potin, who had some political information to look
up, were in the hall, the latter asked: "Have you been to the cashier's
room?"

"No, why?"

"Why? To get your pay? You should always get your salary a month in
advance. One cannot tell what might happen. I will introduce you to the
cashier."

Duroy drew his two hundred francs together with twenty-eight francs for
his article of the preceding day, which, in addition to what remained
to him of his salary from the railroad office, left him three hundred
and forty francs. He had never had so muc