"How?"

"I will take the coat that you made me order a month ago; I am quite sure
it is not worth what is due me, but it is always so."

"Take the coat."

Joseph took the coat from the wardrobe in the hall, and rolled it in a
newspaper.

"Of course you will not expect me in the morning," he said, as he put his
key on the table. "I must look out for another place."

"Very well, I shall not expect you."

"Good-evening, sir."

And Joseph hurried away as quickly as possible.

Left alone, Saniel did not return to his work immediately, but throwing
himself in an armchair he cast a melancholy glance around his office and
through the open door into the parlor. In the faint light of the candle
he saw the large armchairs methodically placed each side of the chimney,
the curtains at the windows lost in shadow, and all the furniture which
for four years had cost him so many efforts. He had long been the
prisoner of this Louis XIV camlet, and he was now going to be executed.
A beautiful affair, truly, brilliant and able! All this had been used
only by the poor Auvergnats, without Saniel enjoying it at all, for he
had neither the bourgeois taste for ornaments nor the desire for
elegance. A movement of anger and revolt against himself made him strike