uth. And that's the way it was till I was thirty years old.
Yes, my friends, at thirty--and I'm not fifty yet--I was still a
beggar, without a sou, with no future, with my heart full of remorse
for my poor mother who was dying of hunger in her hovel down in the
provinces, and to whom I could give nothing."

The faces of the people who surrounded that strange host as he told the
story of his evil days were a curious spectacle. Some seemed disgusted,
especially Monpavon. That display of old rags seemed to him in
execrable taste, and to denote utter lack of breeding. Cardailhac, that
sceptic and man of refined taste, a foe to all emotional scenes, sat
with staring eyes and as if hypnotized, cutting a piece of fruit with
the end of his fork into strips as thin as cigarette papers. The
Governor, on the contrary, went through a pantomime expressive of
perfunctory admiration, with exclamations of horror and compassion;
while, in striking contrast to him, and not far away, Brahim Bey, the
thunderbolt of war, in whom the reading of the article, followed by
discussion after a substantial repast, had induced a refreshing nap,
was sleeping soundly, with his mouth like a round O in his white
moustache, and with the blood congested in his face as a result of the
creeping up of his gorget. But the general expression was indifference
and ennui. What interest had they, I ask you, in Jansoulet's childhood
at Bourg-Saint-Andeol, in what he had suffered, and how he had been
driven from pillar to post? They had not come there for such stuff as
that. So it was that expressions of feigned interest, eyes that counted
the eggs in the ceiling or the crumbs of bread on the table-cloth, lips
tightly compressed to restrain a yawn, betrayed the general impatience
caused by that untimely narrative. But he did not grow weary. He took
pleasure in the recital of his past suffering, as the sailor in a safe
haven delights in recalling his voyages in distant seas, and the
dangers, and the terrible shipwrecks. Next came the tale of his good
luck, the extraordinary accident that suddenly started him on the road
to fortune. "I was wandering about the harbor of Marseille, with a
comrade as out-at-elbows as myself, who also made his fortune in the
Bey's service, and, after being my chum, my partner, became my
bitterest enemy. I can safely tell you his name, _pardi_! He is well
enough known, Hemerlingue. Yes, messieurs, the head of the great
banking-house of Hem