y, their eyes swollen by sleep and by tears.
Mme. Favoral was trembling so much that she could not succeed in
fastening her dress.

"Do you hear?" she said in a choking voice.

From the parlor, which was divided from the dining-room by
folding-doors, they did not miss a single insult.

"Well," said Mlle. Gilberte coldly, "what else could we expect? If
Bertan came alone last night, it is because he alone had been
notified. Here are the others now."

And, turning to her brother,

"You must see them," she added, "speak to them."

But Maxence did not stir. The idea of facing the insults and the
curses of these enraged creditors was too repugnant to him.

"Would you rather let them break in the door?" said Mlle. Gilberte.
"That won't take long."

He hesitated no more. Gathering all his courage, he stepped into
the dining-room. The disorder was beyond limits. The table had
been pushed towards one of the corners, the chairs were upset.
They were there some thirty men and women,--concierges,
shop-keepers, and retired bourgeois of the neighborhood, their
cheeks flushed, their eyes staring, gesticulating as if they had a
fit, shaking their clinched fists at the ceiling.

"Gentlemen," commenced Maxence.

But his voice was drowned by the most frightful shouts. He had
hardly got in, when he was so closely surrounded, that he had been
unable to close the parlor-door after him, and had been driven and
backed against the embrasure of a window.

"My father, gentlemen," he resumed.

Again he was interrupted. There were three or four before him, who
were endeavoring before all to establish their own claims clearly.

They were speaking all at once, each one raising his own voice so
as to drown that of the others. And yet, through their confused
explanations, it was easy to understand the way in which the cashier
of the Mutual Credit had managed things.

Formerly it was only with great reluctance that he consented to take
charge of the funds which were offered to him; and then he never
accepted sums less than ten thousand francs, being always careful to
say, that, not being a prophet, he could not answer for any thing,
and might be mistaken, like any one else. Since the Commune, on the
contrary, and with a duplicity, that could never have been suspected,
he had used all his ingenuity to attract deposits. Under some
pretext or other, he would call among the neighbors, the
shop-keepers; and, after lamenting with