t the end of the month, he counted his money to see
what remained of the five thousand francs that had been given him for
his quarterly allowance. He had just three hundred francs left.

Twenty thousand francs a year is what one chooses to make it--wealth or
poverty. Twenty thousand francs a year represents about sixty francs a
day; but what are sixty francs to a high liver, who breakfasts and dines
at the best restaurants, whose clothes are designed by an illustrious
tailor, who declines to make a pair of trousers for less than a hundred
francs? What are three louis a day to a man who hires a box for first
performances at the opera, to a man who gambles and gives expensive
suppers, to a man who drives out with yellow-haired demoiselles, and
who owns a race-horse? Measuring his purse and his ambition, M. Wilkie
discovered that he should never succeed in making both ends meet. "How
do other people manage?" he wondered. A puzzling question! Every evening
a thousand gorgeously apparelled gentlemen, with a cigar in their mouth
and a flower in their button-hole, may be seen promenading between the
Chaussee d'Antin and the Faubourg Montmartre. Everybody knows them,
and they know everybody, but how they exist is a problem which it
is impossible to solve. How do they live, and what do they live on?
Everybody knows that they have no property; they do nothing, and yet
they are reckless in their expenditures, and rail at work and jeer at
economy. What source do they derive their money from? What vile business
are they engaged in?

However, M. Wilkie did not devote much time to solving this question.
"My relatives must wish me to starve," he said to himself. "Not I--I'm
not that sort of a person, as I'll soon let them know." And thereupon
he wrote to M. Patterson. By return of post that gentleman sent him a
cheque for one thousand francs--a mere drop in the bucket. M. Wilkie
felt indignant and so he wrote again. This time he was obliged to wait
for a reply. Still at last it came. M. Patterson sent him two thousand
francs, and an interminable epistle full of reproaches. The interesting
young man threw the letter into the fire, and went out to hire a
carriage by the month and a servant.

From that day forward, his life was spent in demanding money and waiting
for it. He employed in quick succession every pretext that could soften
the hearts of obdurate relatives, or find the way to the most closely
guarded cash-box. He was ill--he