anything--Paris, it seems, being choke-full of learned men--so my father
had to look for his bread at the end of a hooked stick, and there, too,
he must have found it, for I ate of it during two years, when I came to
live with him after the death of an aunt, with whom I had been staying in
the country."

"Your respectable father must have been a sort of philosopher," said
Dumoulin; "but, unless he found an inheritance in a dustbin, I don't see
how you came into your property."

"Wait for the end of the song. At twelve years of age I was an apprentice
at the factory of M. Tripeaud; two years afterwards, my father died of an
accident, leaving me the furniture of our garret--a mattress, a chair,
and a table--and, moreover, in an old Eau de Cologne box, some papers
(written, it seems, in English), and a bronze medal, worth about ten
sous, chain and all. He had never spoken to me of these papers, so, not
knowing if they were good for anything, I left them at the bottom of an
old trunk, instead of burning them--which was well for me, since it is
upon these papers that I have had money advanced."

"What a godsend!" said Dumoulin. "But somebody must have known that you
had them?"

"Yes; one of those people that are always looking out for old debts came
to Cephyse, who told me all about it; and, after he had read the papers,
he said that the affair was doubtful, but that he would lend me ten
thousand francs on it, if I liked. Ten thousand francs was a large sum,
so I snapped him up!"

"But you must have supposed that these old papers were of great value."