e him very often."

"Then," said la Peyrade, "your master is a mathematician?"

"Yes, monsieur; mathematics have been his bane; they have flung him into
a set of ideas which don't seem to have any common-sense in them ever
since he has been employed at the Observatory, near here."

"Well," said la Peyrade, "you must bring testimony proving your long
devotion to this old man, and I will then draw up a memorial to the
Academy and take the necessary steps to present it."

"How good monsieur is!" said the pious woman, clasping her hands; "and
if he would also let me tell him of a little difficulty--"

"What is it?"

"They tell me, monsieur, that to get this prize persons must be really
very poor."

"Not exactly; still, the Academy does endeavor to choose whose who are
in straitened circumstances, and who have made sacrifices too heavy for
their means."

"Sacrifices! I think I may indeed say I have made sacrifices, for
the little property I inherited from my parents has all been spent in
keeping the old man, and for fifteen years I have had no wages, which,
at three hundred francs a year and compound interest, amount now to a
pretty little sum; as monsieur, I am sure, will agree."

At the words "compound interest," which evidenced a certain amount of
financial culture, la Peyrade looked at this Antigone with increased
attention.

"In short," he said, "your difficulty is--"

"Monsieur will not think it strange," replied the saintly person, "that
a very rich uncle dying in England, who had never done anything for
his family in his lifetime, should have left me twenty-five thousand
francs."

"Certainly," said the barrister, "there's nothing in that but what is
perfectly natural and proper."

"But, monsieur, I have been told that the possession of this money will
prevent the judges from considering my claims to the prize."

"Possibly; because seeing you in possession of a little competence,
the sacrifices which you apparently intend to continue in favor of your
master will be less meritorious."

"I shall never abandon him, poor, dear man, in spite of his faults,
though I know that this poor little legacy which Heaven has given me is
in the greatest danger from him."

"How so?" asked la Peyrade, with some curiosity.

"Eh! monsieur, let him only get wind of that money, and he'd snap it up
at a mouthful; it would all go into his inventions of perpetual motion
and other machines of various kinds which have alre