"You can let the apartment," he said, "it will be so much added to the
income of the factory."

"But you, my friend?"

"Oh! I don't need much. An iron bed up under the eaves. That's all a
clerk needs. For, I repeat, I am nothing but a clerk from this time on.
A useful clerk, by the way, faithful and courageous, of whom you will
have no occasion to complain, I promise you."

Georges, who was going over the books with Planus, was so affected at
hearing the poor fellow talk in that strain that he left his seat
precipitately. He was suffocated by his sobs. Claire, too, was deeply
moved; she went to the new clerk of the house of Fromont and said to him:

"Risler, I thank you in my father's name."

At that moment Pere Achille appeared with the mail.

Risler took the pile of letters, opened them tranquilly one by one, and
passed them over to Sigismond.

"Here's an order for Lyon. Why wasn't it answered at Saint-Etienne?"

He plunged with all his energy into these details, and he brought to them
a keen intelligence, due to the constant straining of the mind toward
peace and forgetfulness.

Suddenly, among those huge envelopes, stamped with the names of business