ing to put me in the way of earning four francs
a day,--yes, four francs a day!"

"I have something better than that to propose to you, my good fellow."

"Better! It's unpolite to contradict you, but I think that would be
difficult. Four francs a day!"

"I tell you I have something better: for this house, all that it
contains, the shop, and a thousand crowns which are in this
pocketbook,--all are yours."

The Chourineur smiled with a stupid air, flattened his long-napped hat
between his knees, and squeezed it convulsively, evidently not
understanding what Rodolph said to him, although his language was plain
enough.

Rodolph, with much kindness, said to him:

"I can imagine your surprise; but I again repeat, this house and this
money are yours,--they are your property."

The Chourineur became purple, passed his horny hand over his brow, which
was bathed with perspiration, and stammered out, in a faltering voice:

"What!--eh!--that is--indeed--my property!"

"Yes, your property; for I bestow it all upon you. Do you understand? I
give it to you."

The Chourineur rocked backwards and forwards on his chair, scratched his
head, coughed, looked down on the ground, and made no reply. He felt
that the thread of his ideas had escaped him. He heard quite well what
Rodolph said to him, and that was the very reason he could not credit
what he heard. Between the depth of misery, the degradation in which he
had always existed, and the position in which Rodolph now placed him,
there was an abyss so wide that the service he had rendered to Rodolph,
important as it was, could not fill it up.

"Does what I give you, then, seem beyond your hopes?" inquired Rodolph.

"My lord," said the Chourineur, starting up suddenly, "you offer me this
house and a great deal of money,--to tempt me; but I cannot take them; I
never robbed in my life. It is, perhaps, to kill; but I have too often
dreamed of the sergeant," added he, in a hoarse tone.

"Oh, the unfortunate!" exclaimed Rodolph, with bitterness. "The
compassion evinced for them is so rare, that they can only explain
liberality as a temptation to crime!"

Then addressing the Chourineur, in a voice full of gentleness:

"You judge me wrong,--you mistake: I shall require from you nothing but
what is honourable. What I give you, I give because you have deserved
it."

"I," said the Chourineur, whose embarrassments recommenced, "I deserve
it! How?"

"I will tell you. Abandoned fr