“Not every one can follow it.”

“You think that one cannot be contented with ten francs a day?”

“I mean that not every one has the chance to make ten francs a day.”

The vague fears of Glady became definite at these words.  They had walked down the Rue Ferou and reached the Place St. Sulpice.

“I think that at last I am going to find a cab,” he said, precipitately.

But this hope was not realized; there was not a single cab at the station, and he was forced to submit to the assault from Saniel.

And Saniel began: 

“You are compelled to walk with me, and, frankly, I rejoice, because I wish to talk to you of a serious affair—­on which depends my future.”

“This is a poor place for serious talk.”

“I do not find it so.”

“We would better appoint some other time.”

“Why should we, since chance has thrown us together here?”

Glady resigned himself to the inevitable, and was as polite as he could be in the circumstances.

“I await your pleasure,” he said in a gracious tone, that was a contrast to his former one.

Saniel, who was in such a hurry a few moments before, now silently walked by Glady, whose eyes were on the shining asphalt pavement.

At last he spoke.

“I have told you that my future depends on the affair concerning which I wish to speak to you.  I can tell you all in a few words:  If I am not able to procure three thousand francs within two days, I shall be obliged to leave Paris, to give up my studies and my work here, and go and bury myself in my native town and become a plain country doctor.”

Glady did not flinch; if he had not foreseen the amount he expected the demand, and he continued gazing at his feet.

“You know,” continued Saniel, “that I am the son of peasants; my father was marshal in a poor village of Auvergne.  At school I gave proof of a certain aptitude for work above my comrades, and our cure conceived an affection for me and taught me all he knew.  Then he made me enter a small seminary.  But I had neither the docile mind nor the submissive character that was necessary for this education, and after several years of pranks and punishments, although I was not expelled, I was given to understand that my departure would be hailed with delight.  I then became usher in a small school, but without salary, taking board and lodging as payment.  I passed a good examination and was preparing for my degree, when I left the school owing to a quarrel.  I had made some money by giving private lessons, and I found myself the possessor of nearly eighty francs.  I started for Paris, where I arrived at five o’clock one morning in June, and where I knew, no one.  I had a small trunk containing a few shirts, which obliged me to take a carriage.  I told the coachman to take me to a hotel in the Latin Quarter.  ‘Which hotel?’ he asked; ‘I do not care,’ I answered.  ‘Do you wish to go to the Hotel du Senat?’ The name pleased me; perhaps it was an omen.  He took me to the Hotel du Senat, where, with what I had left of my eighty francs, I paid a month in advance.  I stayed there eight years.”