have inspired some little confidence; and I obtained credit, an
unprecedented thing, with the representative of the revenue. [The
government in France has the sole control of the tobacco trade,
which forms an important branch of the inland revenue.] Ah, why did
not I open a shop and expose for sale some packets of candles, a
dozen dried cod, a barrel of sardines and a few cakes of soap! I am
no more of a fool nor any less industrious than another; and I
should have made my way. But, as it was, what could I expect? As
an accoucheur of brains, a molder of intellects, I had no claim
even to bread and cheese.

Here is my former habitation, occupied since by droning monks. In
the embrasure of that window, sheltered from profane hands, between
the closed outer shutters and the panes, I used to keep my
chemicals, bought for a few sous cheated out of the weekly budget
in the early days of our housekeeping. The bowl of a pipe was my
crucible, a sweet jar my retort, mustard pots my receptacles for
oxides and sulfides. My experiments, harmless or dangerous, were
made on a corner of the fire beside the simmering broth.

How I should love to see that room again where I pored over
differentials and integrals, where I calmed my poor burning head by
gazing at Mont Ventoux, whose summit held in store for my coming
expedition' those denizens of arctic climes, the saxifrage and the
poppy! And to see my familiar friend, the blackboard which I hired
at five francs a year from a crusty joiner, that board whose value
I paid many times over, though I. could never buy it outright, for
want of the necessary cash! The conic sections which I described on
that blackboard, the learned hieroglyphics!