out of it, mild blue in tint, but appallingly malignant in
expression; and the owner, an insignificant young man, was completely
hidden by the veteran's opaque person. It was a blood-curdling voice, a
sound between the mewing of a cat and the wheezy chokings of a hyena.

"Yes, yes, my little militiaman," retorted he of the medal, "but you are
counting the headings and white lines. I have Finot's instructions to
add up the totals of the lines, and to divide them by the proper number
for each column; and after I performed that concentrating operation on
your copy, there were three columns less."

"He doesn't pay for the blanks, the Jew! He reckons them in though when
he sends up the total of his work to his partner, and he gets paid for
them too. I will go and see Etienne Lousteau, Vernou----"

"I cannot go beyond my orders, my boy," said the veteran. "What! do you
cry out against your foster-mother for a matter of fifteen francs? you
that turn out an article as easily as I smoke a cigar. Fifteen francs!
why, you will give a bowl of punch to your friends, or win an extra game
of billiards, and there's an end of it!"

"Finot's savings will cost him very dear," said the contributor as he
took his departure.

"Now, would not anybody think that he was Rousseau and Voltaire rolled
in one?" the cashier remarked to himself as he glanced at Lucien.

"I will come in again at four, sir," said Lucien.

While the argument proceeded, Lucien had been looking about him. He saw
upon the walls the portraits of Benjamin Constant, General Foy, and the
seventeen illustrious orators of the Left, interspersed with caricatures
at the expense of the Government; but he looked more particularly at
the door of the sanctuary where, no doubt, the paper was elaborated,
the witty paper that amused him daily, and enjoyed the privilege of
ridiculing kings and the most portentous events, of calling anything
and everything in question with a jest. Then he sauntered along the
boulevards. It was an entirely novel amusement; and so agreeable did he
find it, that, looking at the turret clocks, he saw the hour hands were
pointing to four, and only then remembered that he had not breakfasted.

He went at once in the direction of the Rue Saint-Fiacre, climbed the
stair, and opened the door.

The veteran officer was absent; but the old pensioner, sitting on a
pile of stamped papers, was munching a crust and acting as sentinel
resignedly. Coloquinte was as