And Cyrillon, left to himself, gathered up all the coins he had been
counting out previous to the lawyer's arrival, and tied them again
together in the old leathern bag; then having closed and strapped
his little travelling valise, sat down and waited. Punctually to the
time indicated, that is to say, in one hour from the moment Petitot
had concluded his interview with the celebrated personage whom he
now mentally called "an impossible young man," a clerk arrived
bringing the ten thousand francs promised. He counted the notes out
carefully,--Cyrillon watching him quietly the while, and taking
sympathetic observation of his shabby appearance, his thread-bare
coat, and his general expression of pinched and anxious poverty.
"You will perceive it is all right, Monsieur," he said humbly, as he
finished counting.
"What are you, mon ami?" asked Cyrillon; scarcely glancing at the
notes but fixing a searching glance on the messenger who had brought
them.
"I?" and the clerk coughed nervously and blushed,--"Oh, I am
nothing, Monsieur! I am Monsieur Petitot's clerk, that is all!"
"And does he pay you well?"
"Thirty francs a week, Monsieur. It is not bad,--only this--I was
young a few years ago, and I married--and two dear little ones came-
-so it is a pull at times to make everything go as it should--not
that I am sorry for myself at all, oh no! For I am well off as the
people go--"
Cyrillon interrupted him.
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