"Good!" exclaimed one of the clerks, "there is a man who never lets
anything disturb him. The chief has quarrelled with him twenty times for
always coming too late, and his remonstrances have no more effect upon
him than a breath of wind."

"And very right, too; he knows he can get anything he wants out of the
chief."

"Besides, how could he come any sooner? a man who sits up all night, and
leads a fast life, doesn't feel like going to work early in the morning.
Did you notice how very pale he looked when he came in?"

"He must have been playing heavily again. Couturier says he lost fifteen
thousand francs at a sitting last week."

"His work is none the worse done for all that," interrupted Cavaillon.
"If you were in his place--"

He stopped short. The cash-room door suddenly opened, and the cashier
appeared before them with tottering step, and a wild, haggard look on
his ashy face.

"Robbed!" he gasped out: "I have been robbed!"

Prosper's horrified expression, his hollow voice and trembling limbs,
betrayed such fearful suffering that the clerks jumped up from their
desks, and ran toward him. He almost dropped into their arms; he was
sick and faint, and fell into a chair.

His companions surrounded him, and begged him to explain himself.