ut
you don't seem to think about the present. What about this inventory?"

"Ah, yes! to be sure. I had forgotten all about it. It isn't very
satisfactory, is it?"

He said that because of the somewhat disturbed and embarrassed expression
on Georges's face.

"Why, yes, on the contrary, it is very satisfactory indeed," was the
reply. "We have every reason to be satisfied, especially as this is our
first year together. We have forty thousand francs each for our share of
the profits; and as I thought you might need a little money to give your
wife a New Year's present--"

Ashamed to meet the eyes of the honest man whose confidence he was
betraying, Fromont jeune placed a bundle of cheques and notes on the
table.

Risler was deeply moved for a moment. So much money at one time for him!
His mind dwelt upon the generosity of these Fromonts, who had made him
what he was; then he thought of his little Sidonie, of the longing which
she had so often expressed and which he would now be able to gratify.

With tears in his eyes and a happy smile on his lips, he held out both
hands to his partner.

"I am very happy! I am very happy!"

That was his favorite phrase on great occasions. Then he pointed to the
bundles of bank notes spread out before him in the narrow bands which are
used to confine those fugitive documents, always ready to fly away.

"Do you know what that is?" he said to Georges, with an air of triumph.
"That is Sidonie's house in the country!"

CHAPTER XII

A LETTER

"TO M. FRANTZ RISLER,

"Engineer of the Compagnie Francaise,
"Ismailia, Egypt.

"Frantz, my boy, it is old Sigismond who is writing to you. If I
knew better how to put my ideas on paper, I should have a very long
story to tell you. But this infernal French is too hard, and
Sigismond Planus is good for nothing away from his figures. So I
will come to the point at once.

"Affairs in your brother's house are not as they should be. That
woman is false to him with his partner. She has made her husband a
laughing-stock, and if this goes on she will cause him to be looked
upon as a rascal. Frantz, my boy, you must come home at once. You
are the only one who can speak to Risler and open his eyes about
that little Sidonie. He would not believe any of us. Ask leave of
absence at once, and come.

"I know that you have your bread to earn out there, and your future
to assure; but a man of hon