scription, did you? Well, then
you hold a fine position: demand an account of that subscription. I'll
tell you how you can do it. A new Opposition journal is just starting,
under the auspices of the deputies of the Left; you shall be the
cashier, with a salary of three thousand francs. A permanent place. All
you want is some one to go security for you in twenty thousand francs;
find that, and you shall be installed within a week. I'll advise
the Liberals to silence you by giving you the place. Meantime, talk,
threaten,--threaten loudly."

Giroudeau let Philippe, who was profuse in his thanks, go down a few
steps before him, and then he turned back to say to his nephew, "Well,
you are a queer fellow! you keep me here on twelve hundred francs--"

"That journal won't live a year," said Finot. "I've got something better
for you."

"Thunder!" cried Philippe to Giroudeau. "He's no fool, that nephew of
yours. I never once thought of making something, as he calls it, out of
my position."

That night at the cafe Lemblin and the cafe Minerve Colonel Philippe
fulminated against the Liberal party, which had raised subscriptions,
sent heroes to Texas, talked hypocritically of Soldier-laborers, and
left them to starve, after taking the money they had put into it, and
keeping them in exile for two years.

"I am going to demand an account of the moneys collected by the
subscription for the Champ d'Asile," he said to one of the frequenters
of the cafe, who repeated it to the journalists of the Left.

Philippe did not go back to the rue Mazarin; he went to Mariette and
told her of his forthcoming appointment on a newspaper with ten thousand
subscribers, in which her choregraphic claims should be warmly advanced.

Agathe and Madame Descoings waited up for Philippe in fear and
trembling, for the Duc de Berry had just been assassinated. The colonel
came home a few minutes after breakfast; and when his mother showed her
uneasiness at his absence, he grew angry and asked if he were not of
age.

"In the name of thunder, what's all this! here have I brought you some
good news, and you both look like tombstones. The Duc de Berry is dead,
is he?--well, so much the better! that's one the less, at any rate.
As for me, I am to be cashier of a newspaper, with a salary of three
thousand francs, and there you are, out of all your anxieties on my
account."

"Is it possible?" cried Agathe.

"Yes; provided you can go security for me in twenty