sixty francs, which she had lost five years before. He pronounced his
words with great distinctness and sonority, and Newman assured him
that his way of dealing with the French tongue was very superior to the
bewildering chatter that he heard in other mouths. Upon this M. Nioche's
accent became more finely trenchant than ever, he offered to read
extracts from Lamartine, and he protested that, although he did endeavor
according to his feeble lights to cultivate refinement of diction,
monsieur, if he wanted the real thing, should go to the Theatre
Francais.

Newman took an interest in French thriftiness and conceived a lively
admiration for Parisian economies. His own economic genius was so
entirely for operations on a larger scale, and, to move at his ease, he
needed so imperatively the sense of great risks and great prizes, that
he found an ungrudging entertainment in the spectacle of fortunes made
by the aggregation of copper coins, and in the minute subdivision of
labor and profit. He questioned M. Nioche about his own manner of life,
and felt a friendly mixture of compassion and respect over the recital
of his delicate frugalities. The worthy man told him how, at one period,
he and his daughter had supported existence comfortably upon the sum of
fifteen sous per diem; recently, having succeeded in hauling ashore the
last floating fragments of the wreck of his fortune, his budget had
been a trifle more ample. But they still had to count their sous very
narrowly, and M. Nioche intimated with a sigh that Mademoiselle Noemie
did not bring to this task that zealous cooperation which might have
been desired.

"But what will you have?"' he asked, philosophically. "One is young, one
is pretty, one needs new dresses and fresh gloves; one can't wear shabby
gowns among the splendors of the Louvre."