e asked.

"What money?"

"Why, my ten thousand francs! Ten thousand francs which I brought
to M. Favoral, in gold, you hear? in ten rolls, which I placed
there, on that very table, and for which he gave me a receipt. Here
it is,--his receipt."

He held out a paper; but Maxence did not take it.

"I do not doubt your word, sir," he replied; "but my father's
business is not ours."

"You refuse to give me back my money?"

"Neither my mother, my sister, nor myself, have any thing."

The blood rushed to the man's face, and, with a tongue made thick
by anger,

"And you think you are going to pay me off in that way?" he
exclaimed. "You have nothing! Poor little fellow! And will you
tell me, then, what has become of the twenty millions your father
has stolen? for he has stolen twenty millions. I know it: I have
been told so. Where are they?"

"The police, sir, has placed the seals over my fathers papers."

"The police?" interrupted the baker, "the seals? What do I care
for that? It's my money I want: do you hear? Justice is going to
take a hand in it, is it? Arrest your father, try him? What good
will that do me? He will be condemned to two or three years'
imprisonment. Will that give me a cent? He will serve out his time
quietly; and, when he gets out of prison, he'll get hold of the pile
that he's got hidden somewhere; and while I starve, he'll spend my
money under my very nose. No, no! Things won't suit me that way.
It's at once that I want to be paid."

And throwing himself upon a chair his head back, and his legs
stretched forward--

"And what's more," he declared, "I am not going out of here until
I am paid."

It was not without the greatest efforts that Maxence managed to
keep his temper.

"Your insults are useless, sir," he commenced.

The man jumped up from his seat.

"Insults!" he cried in a voice that could have been heard all
through the house. "Do you call it an insult when a man claims his
own? If you think you can make me hush, you are mistaken in your
man, M. Favoral, Jun. I am not rich myself: my father has not
stolen to leave me an income. It is not in gambling at the bourse
that I made these ten thousand francs. It is by the sweat of my
body, by working hard night and day for years, by depriving myself
of a glass of wine when I was thirsty. And I am to lose them? By
the holy name of heaven, we'll have to see about that! If everybody
was like me, there would not