tection. It would be well to be on one's guard, especially as he
received all pleasantries with unruffled calmness. After that he was
treated with respect, and his sham courage saved him; he was appointed
head clerk on the first of January, 1880. His whole life had been spent
indoors. He hated noise and bustle, and because of this love of rest and
quiet he had remained a bachelor. He spent his Sundays reading tales
of adventure and ruling guide lines which he afterward offered to his
colleagues. In his whole existence he had only taken three vacations
of a week each, when he was changing his quarters. But sometimes, on
a holiday, he would leave by an excursion train for Dieppe or Havre in
order to elevate his mind by the inspiring sight of the sea.

He was full of that common sense which borders on stupidity. For a
long time he had been living quietly, with economy, temperate through
prudence, chaste by temperament, when suddenly he was assailed by a
terrible apprehension. One evening in the street he suddenly felt
an attack of dizziness which made him fear a stroke of apoplexy. He
hastened to a physician and for five francs obtained the following
prescription:

M. X-, fifty-five years old, bachelor, clerk. Full-blooded,
danger of apoplexy. Cold-water applications, moderate nourishment,
plenty of exercise. MONTELLIER, M.D.

Patissot was greatly distressed, and for a whole month, in his office,
he kept a wet towel wrapped around his head like a turban while the
water continually dripped on his work, which he would have to do over
again. Every once in a while he would read the prescription over,
probably in the hope of finding some hidden meaning, of penetrating into
the secret thought of the physician, and also of discovering some forms
of exercise which, might perhaps make him immune from apoplexy.

Then he consulted his friends, showing them the fateful paper. One
advised boxing. He immediately hunted up an instructor, and, on the
first day, he received a punch in the nose which immediately took away
all his ambition in this direction. Single-stick made him gasp for
breath, and he grew so stiff from fencing that for two days and two
nights he could not get sleep. Then a bright idea struck him. It was to
walk, every Sunday, to some suburb of Paris and even to certain places
in the capital which he did not know.

For a whole week his mind was occupied with thoughts of the equipment
which you need for the