.M." But it must be said
that if he had seen it, he attached so little importance to this scrap
of paper, and so much importance to his two hundred thousand francs,
that he would not have opposed whatever the Englishman might do, however
irregular it might be.

"Thanks," said the latter, closing the register with a slam, "I have
all I want; now it is for me to perform my promise. Give me a simple
assignment of your debt; acknowledge therein the receipt of the cash,
and I will hand you over the money." He rose, gave his seat to M. de
Boville, who took it without ceremony, and quickly drew up the required
assignment, while the Englishman counted out the bank-notes on the other
side of the desk.

Chapter 29. The House of Morrel & Son.

Any one who had quitted Marseilles a few years previously, well
acquainted with the interior of Morrel's warehouse, and had returned at
this date, would have found a great change. Instead of that air of life,
of comfort, and of happiness that permeates a flourishing and prosperous
business establishment--instead of merry faces at the windows, busy
clerks hurrying to and fro in the long corridors--instead of the court
filled with bales of goods, re-echoing with the cries and the jokes of
porters, one would have immediately perceived all aspect of sadness and
gloom. Out of all the numerous clerks that used to fill the deserted
corridor and the empty office, but two remained. One was a young man of
three or four and twenty, who was in love with M. Morrel's daughter, and
had remained with him in spite of the efforts of his friends to induce
him to withdraw; the other was an old one-eyed cashier, called "Cocles,"
or "Cock-eye," a nickname given him by the young men who used to throng
this vast now almost deserted bee-hive, and which had so completely
replaced his real name that he would not, in all probability, have
replied to any one who addressed him by it.

Cocles remained in M. Morrel's service, and a most singular change had
taken place in his position; he had at the same time risen to the rank
of cashier, and sunk to the rank of a servant. He was, however, the
same Cocles, good, patient, devoted, but inflexible on the subject of
arithmetic, the only point on which he would have stood firm against the
world, even against M. Morrel; and strong in the multiplication-table,
which he had at his fingers' ends, no matter what scheme or what trap
was laid to catch him. In the midst of the d