was a dangerous commission. Mademoiselle Planus made some objections,
but she never had been able to resist her brother's wishes, and the
desire to be of service to their old friend Risler assisted materially
in persuading her.

Thanks to his son-in-law's kindness, M. Chebe had succeeded in
gratifying his latest whim. For three months past he had been living
at his famous warehouse on the Rue du Mail, and a great sensation was
created in the quarter by that shop without merchandise, the shutters
of which were taken down in the morning and put up again at night, as
in wholesale houses. Shelves had been placed all around the walls, there
was a new counter, a safe, a huge pair of scales. In a word, M. Chebe
possessed all the requisites of a business of some sort, but did not
know as yet just what business he would choose.

He pondered the subject all day as he walked to and fro across the shop,
encumbered with several large pieces of bedroom furniture which they had
been unable to get into the back room; he pondered it, too, as he stood
on his doorstep, with his pen behind his ear, and feasted his eyes
delightedly on the hurly-burly of Parisian commerce. The clerks who
passed with their packages of samples under their arms, the vans of the
express companies, the omnibuses, the porters, the wheelbarrows, the
great bales of merchandise at the neighboring doors, the packages of
rich stuffs and trimmings which were dragged in the mud before being
consigned to those underground regions, those dark holes stuffed with
treasures, where the fortune of business lies in embryo--all these
things delighted M. Chebe.

He amused himself guessing at the contents of the bales and was first at
the fray when some passer-by received a heavy package upon his feet,
or the horses attached to a dray, spirited and restive, made the long
vehicle standing across the street an obstacle to circulation. He had,
moreover, the thousand-and-one distractions of the petty tradesman
without customers, the heavy showers, the accidents, the thefts, the
disputes.

At the end of the day M. Chebe, dazed, bewildered, worn out by the labor
of other people, would stretch himself out in his easy-chair and say to
his wife, as he wiped his forehead:

"That's the kind of life I need--an active life."

Madame Chebe would smile softly without replying. Accustomed as she
was to all her husband's whims, she had made herself as comfortable
as possible in a back room