, like a Gascon, to carry off both
first and second prizes, but satisfied as a philosopher if he could
figure among the honorable mentions. Despite the fact that one hundred
and forty-five prizes were advertised each year, in nineteen attempts he
had not even had the pleasure of seeing his name in print. This result,
far from discouraging him, only inflamed his confidence. For he had
dipped into mathematics, and consoled himself by the reflection that,
according to the law of probabilities, each year he became the more
irresistible.

Lately, however, one obstacle had arisen to the successful carrying out
of this system of finance. He employed one servant, a maid-of-all-work,
who was engaged for the day, with permission to take from the garden
what she needed, to adorn herself from the rose-bushes, to share the
output of La Belle Etoile, the cow, and to receive a salary of ten
francs a month. The difficulty invariably arose over the interpretation
of this last clause. For the Comte was not regular in his payments,
unless it could be said that he was regular in not paying at all.

So it invariably occurred that the maid-of-all-work from a state of
unrest gradually passed into open rebellion, especially when the garden
was not productive and the roses ceased to bloom. When the ultimatum was
served, the Comte consulted his resources and found them invariably to
consist of two tickets of the Lottery of France, cash value twenty
francs, but, according to the laws of probability, increasingly capable
of returning one million, five hundred thousand francs. On one side was
the glory of the ancient name, and the possibility of another descent on
Paris; opposed was the brutal question of soup and ragout. The man
prevailed, and the maid-of-all-work grudgingly accepted the conditions
of truce. Then the news of the drawing arrived and the domestic staff
departed.

This comedy, annually repeated, was annually played on the same lines.
Only each year the period intervening between the surrender of the
tickets and the announcement of the lottery brought an increasing agony.
Each time as the Comte saw the precious slips finally depart in the
hands of the maid-of-all-work, he was convinced that at last the laws of
probability must fructify. Each year he found a new meaning in the
cabalistic mysteries of numbers. The eighteenth attempt, multiplied by
three, gave fifty-four, his age. Success was inevitable: nineteen, a
number indivisible