oney into his pocket.

As he was about to leave the store, he turned toward the merchant, who
still wore the same knowing smile, and lowering his eyes, said:

"I have--I have other gems, which came from the same source. Will
you buy them, also?"

The merchant bowed: "Certainly, sir."

Monsieur Lantin said gravely: "I will bring them to you." An hour later,
he returned with the gems.

The large diamond earrings were worth twenty thousand francs; the
bracelets, thirty-five thousand; the rings, sixteen thousand; a set of
emeralds and sapphires, fourteen thousand; a gold chain with solitaire
pendant, forty thousand--making the sum of one hundred and
forty-three thousand francs.

The jeweler remarked, jokingly:

"There was a person who invested all her savings in precious stones."

Monsieur Lantin replied, seriously:

"It is only another way of investing one's money."

That day he lunched at Voisin's, and drank wine worth twenty francs a
bottle. Then he hired a carriage and made a tour of the Bois. He gazed at
the various turnouts with a kind of disdain, and could hardly refrain
from crying out to the occupants:

"I, too, am rich!--I am worth two hundred thousand francs."

Suddenly he thought of his employer. He drove up to the bureau, and
entered gaily, saying:

"Sir, I have come to resign my position. I have just inherited three
hundred thousand francs."

He shook hands with his former colleagues, and confided to them some of
his projects for the future; he then went off to dine at the Cafe
Anglais.

He seated himself beside a gentleman of aristocratic bearing; and, during
the meal, informed the latter confidentially that he had just inherited a
fortune of four hundred thousand francs.

For the first time in his life, he was not bored at the theatre, and
spent the remainder of the night in a gay frolic.

Six months afterward, he married again. His second wife was a very
virtuous woman; but had a violent temper. She caused him much sorrow.

FASCINATION

I can tell you neither the name of the country, nor the name of the man.
It was a long, long way from here on a fertile and burning shore. We had
been walking since the morning along the coast, with the blue sea bathed
in sunlight on one side of us, and the shore covered with crops on the
other. Flowers were growing quite close to the waves, those light,
gentle, lulling waves. It was very warm, a soft warmth permeated with the
odor of the rich,