on, and brings
him in, one year with another, besides the interest on his dozen
millions, three or four hundred thousand francs more. Nothing is more
solid than the Chamblard bank; it's honest, it's venerable. Papa isn't
fair to me, but I'm fair to him. When you have a father in business,
it's a good thing when you go out not to be exposed to meet eyes which
seem to say to you, 'My dear fellow, your father has swindled me.' Papa
has but one passion: from five to seven every day he plays piquet at his
club, at ten sous a point, and as he is an excellent player, he wins
seven times out of ten. He keeps an account of his games with the same
scrupulous exactitude he has in all things, and he was telling the day
before yesterday that piquet this year had brought him in six thousand
five hundred francs over and above the cost of the cards. He has a seat
in the orchestra at the opera, not for the ballet, but for the music
only; he never goes on the stage--neither do I, for that matter. Dancers
don't attract me at all; they live in Batignolles, in Montmartre; they
always walk with their mothers; they completely lack charm. In short, my
father is what one calls a good man. You see I continue to be fair to
him. Besides, I'm always right. Yes, it's a very good thing to have an
honorable father, and Papa Chamblard is a model of all virtues, and he
accumulates for me with a zeal! but I think, just at present, he
accumulates a little too much. He has cut off my income. No marriage,
no money. That's brief and decisive. That's his programme. And he has
hunted up a wife for me--when I say one, I should say three."

"Three wives!"

"Yes. One morning he came to me and said: 'This must end. Look, here's a
list--three splendid matches.' There were the names, the relations, the
dowries--it was even arranged in the order of the dowries. I had to
yield and consent to an interview with Number One. That took place at
the Salon in the Champs Elysees. Ah, my boy, Number One--dry, flat,
bony, sallow!"

"Then why did your father--"

"Why? Because she was the daughter, and only daughter, of a wealthy
manufacturer from Roubaix. It was splendid! We each started with a
hundred thousand francs income, and that was to be, in the course of
time, after realized expectations, a shower of millions! It made papa
supremely happy--the thought that all his millions in Paris would one
day make an enormous heap with all those Roubaix millions. Millions
don't f