e their income which
they did not nearly spend.

For two years he had always come to the office with the same old patched
umbrella, to the great amusement of his fellow clerks. At last he got
tired of their jokes, and insisted upon his wife buying him a new one.
She bought one for eight francs and a half, one of those cheap articles
which large houses sell as an advertisement. When the men in the office
saw the article, which was being sold in Paris by the thousand, they
began their jokes again, and Oreille had a dreadful time of it. They
even made a song about it, which he heard from morning till night all
over the immense building.

Oreille was very angry, and peremptorily told his wife to get him a new
one, a good silk one, for twenty francs, and to bring him the bill, so
that he might see that it was all right.

She bought him one for eighteen francs, and said, getting red with anger
as she gave it to her husband:

"This will last you for five years at least."

Oreille felt quite triumphant, and received a small ovation at the
office with his new acquisition.

When he went home in the evening his wife said to him, looking at the
umbrella uneasily:

"You should not leave it fastened up with the elastic; it will very
likely cut the silk. You must take care of it, for I shall not buy you a
new one in a hurry."

She took it, unfastened it, and remained dumfounded with astonishment
and rage; in the middle of the silk there was a hole as big as a
six-penny-piece; it had been made with the end of a cigar.

"What is that?" she screamed.

Her husband replied quietly, without looking at it:

"What is it? What do you mean?"

She was choking with rage, and could hardly get out a word.

"You--you--have--burned--your umbrella! Why--you must be--mad! Do you
wish to ruin us outright?"

He turned round, and felt that he was growing pale.

"What are you talking about?"

"I say that you have burned your umbrella. Just look here."

And rushing at him, as if she were going to beat him, she violently
thrust the little circular burned hole under his nose.

He was so utterly struck dumb at the sight of it that he could only
stammer out:

"What-what is it? How should I know? I have done nothing, I will swear.
I don't know what is the matter with the umbrella."

"You have been playing tricks with it at the office; you have been
playing the fool and opening it, to show it off!" she screamed.

"I only opened it once