As the sound of his heavy footsteps creaked down the stairs, Jean came out and flung himself on the chair which M. Plon had occupied.

“Now that that old idiot has taken himself off, let’s see what he was talking about.”

“Is it true about the robbery?” asked Marie, leaning over his shoulder.

“So it seems.”

“And the reward?”

“Twelve thousand francs.”

“Twelve thousand francs!” repeated his wife in amazement.  “Oh, you must be mistaken!”

“There are the figures at any rate, see for yourself.”

“Yes, I see.  I suppose it must be so, as it is in the paper; but—­but—­if we could only have a little part of it!”

“Ah, if!” said Jean with a shrug.  “But how will you manage?  Stand about the corners of the Streets and ask every escarpe that passes?”

“I could almost do that,” his wife answered stoutly, “when I reflect that with money we might have an advocate, and you might be free.  My store grows so slowly, Jean!”

Jean dashed the paper to the ground, and thrust his hands through his hair.

“Don’t talk of it, if you wouldn’t madden me!” he exclaimed.  “Might—­might—­I am sick of mights!  Cooped up here I can do nothing, but if I had only common luck I might get the end of a clue as well as any other poor devil.  I tell you, Marie, I have half a mind to give myself up, and end everything.”

She clung to him, pale as death.

“No, no!”

“You’d get on better without me.”

“No, no!”

Jean’s tragic air vanished in a rush of real emotion.  He put his wife from him and looked at her sorrowfully.

“Poor soul!” he said slowly.  “And you really mean that I haven’t tired you out yet with all my moods and cross words?  No?  Then, decidedly, we must rub on a little longer still.”

She embraced him with all the gratitude a woman feels when her good offices are accepted.

“To-morrow,” she said cheerfully, “to-morrow will bring you some tobacco.”

“To-morrow will also, I imagine, bring Perine,” he replied, with a laugh, and when he laughed it was possible to see what a handsome young fellow the haggard man had been.  “Well, I am not sure that Perine isn’t preferable to old Plon-Plon.  When I hear him prosing away to you on the duty of being contented, it’s all I can do not to knock him down.  You a bad manager, indeed!”

“Do not talk of anything so imprudent.”

“He would roll like a ball,” said Jean longingly.

“Jean!”

“Bah, you need not fear.  To do things sometimes in imagination is the only way of keeping my muscles in exercise.  Oh, if I could only get a little fresh air, or drop in at the brasserie and hear what is doing!”

“See, here,” said Marie, true to her mission of comforter, “to-night we shall have a luxury, for this work must be finished and carried home to-morrow morning, and so I shall allow myself a candle.  Sometimes I am afraid that I want more light than in old days, but I daresay that is a foolish fancy.  The cabbage will be ready in a few minutes; meanwhile, tell me what more news you have got there in the paper.  M. Plon has a great respect for my scholarship, but he is afraid I waste my time over his journals—­aha, M. Plon, you little know that I have got my reader!”