to understand.

"Account? What account, pray?"

Then all three began to laugh at the same moment, and heartily too, as if
at a joke, a rather broad joke, on the part of the old cashier. "Go along
with you, you sly old Pere Planus!" The old man laughed with them! He
laughed without any desire to laugh, simply to do as the others did.

At last they explained. Fromont Jeune had come in person, six months
before, to collect the balance in their hands.

Sigismond felt that his strength was going. But he summoned courage to
say:

"Ah! yes; true. I had forgotten. Sigismond Planus is growing old, that is
plain. I am failing, my children, I am failing."

And the old man went away wiping his eyes, in which still glistened great
tears caused by the hearty laugh he had just enjoyed. The young people
behind him exchanged glances and shook their heads. They understood.

The blow he had received was so crushing that the cashier, as soon as he
was out-of-doors, was obliged to sit down on a bench. So that was the
reason why Georges did not come to the counting-room for money. He made
his collections in person. What had taken place at the Prochassons' had
probably been repeated everywhere else. It was quite useless, therefore,
for him to subject himself to further humiliation. Yes, but the notes,
the notes!--that thought renewed his strength. He wiped the perspiration
from his forehead and started once more to try his luck with a customer
in the faubourg. But this time he took his precautions and called to the
cashier from the doorway, without entering:

"Good-morning, Pere So-and-So. I want to ask you a question."

He held the door half open, his hand upon the knob.

"When did we settle our last bill? I forgot to enter it."

Oh! it was a long while ago, a very long while, that their last bill was
settled. Fromont Jeune's receipt was dated in September. It was five
months ago.

The door was hastily closed. Another! Evidently it would be the same
thing everywhere.

"Ah! Monsieur Chorche, Monsieur Chorche," muttered poor Sigismond; and
while he pursued his journey, with bowed head and trembling legs, Madame
Fromont Jeune's carriage passed him close, on its way to the Orleans
station; but Claire did not see old Planus, any more than she had seen,
when she left her house a few moments earlier, Monsieur Chebe in his long
frock-coat and the illustrious Delobelle in his stovepipe hat, turning
into the Rue des Vieilles-Haudriette