II

At the proper age of thirty-one, the Comte de Bonzag fell heir to the enormous sum of fifteen thousand francs from an uncle who had made the fortune in trade. With no more delay than it took the great Emperor to fling an army across the Alps, he descended on Paris, resolved to repulse all advances which Louis Napoleon might make, and to lend the splendor of his name and the weight of his fortune only to the Cercle Royale. Two weeks devoted to this loyal end strengthened the Bourbon lines perceptibly, but resulted in a shrinkage of four thousand francs in his own. Next remembering that the aristocracy had always been the patron of the arts, he determined to make a rapid examination of the coulisses of the opera and the regions of the ballet. A six-days' reconnaissance discovered not the slightest signs of disaffection; but the thoroughness of his inquiries was such that the completion of his mission found him with just one thousand francs in pocket. Being not only a Loyalist and a patron of the arts, but a statesman and a philosopher, he turned his efforts toward the Quartier Latin, to the great minds who would one day take up the guidance of a more enlightened France. There he made the discovery that one amused himself more than at the Cercle Royale, and spent considerably less than in the arts, and that at one hundred francs a week he aroused an enthusiasm for the Bourbons which almost attained the proportions of a riot.

The three months over, he retired to his estate at Keragouil, having profoundly stirred all classes of society, given new life to the cause of His Majesty, and regretting only, as a true gentleman, the frightful devastation he had left in the hearts of the ladies.

Unfortunately, these brilliant services to Parisian society and his king had left him without any society of his own, forced to the consideration of the difficult problem of how to keep his pipe lighted, his cellar full, and his maid-of-all-work in a state of hopeful expectation, on nothing a year.

Nothing daunted, he attacked this problem of the family bankruptcy with the vigor and the daring of a D'Artagnan. Each year he collected laboriously twenty francs, and invested them in two tickets for the Great Lottery, valiantly resolved, like a Gascon, to carry off both first and second prizes, but satisfied as a philosopher if he could figure among the honorable mentions. Despite the fact that one hundred and forty-five prizes were advertised each year, in nineteen attempts he had not even had the pleasure of seeing his name in print. This result, far from discouraging him, only inflamed his confidence. For he had dipped into mathematics, and consoled himself by the reflection that, according to the law of probabilities, each year he became the more irresistible.

Lately, however, one obstacle had arisen to the successful carrying out of this system of finance. He employed one servant, a maid-of-all-work, who was engaged for the day, with permission to take from the garden what she needed, to adorn herself from the rose-bushes, to share the output of La Belle Etoile, the cow, and to receive a salary of ten francs a month. The difficulty invariably arose over the interpretation of this last clause. For the Comte was not regular in his payments, unless it could be said that he was regular in not paying at all.

So it invariably occurred that the maid-of-all-work from a state of unrest gradually passed into open rebellion, especially when the garden was not productive and the roses ceased to bloom. When the ultimatum was served, the Comte consulted his resources and found them invariably to consist of two tickets of the Lottery of France, cash value twenty francs, but, according to the laws of probability, increasingly capable of returning one million, five hundred thousand francs. On one side was the glory of the ancient name, and the possibility of another descent on Paris; opposed was the brutal question of soup and ragout. The man prevailed, and the maid-of-all-work grudgingly accepted the conditions of truce. Then the news of the drawing arrived and the domestic staff departed.

This comedy, annually repeated, was annually played on the same lines. Only each year the period intervening between the surrender of the tickets and the announcement of the lottery brought an increasing agony. Each time as the Comte saw the precious slips finally depart in the hands of the maid-of-all-work, he was convinced that at last the laws of probability must fructify. Each year he found a new meaning in the cabalistic mysteries of numbers. The eighteenth attempt, multiplied by three, gave fifty-four, his age. Success was inevitable: nineteen, a number indivisible and chaste above all others, seemed specially designated. In a word, the Comte suffered during these periods as only a gambler of the fourth generation is able to suffer.

At present the number twenty appeared to him to have properties no other number had possessed, especially in the reappearance of the zero, a figure which peculiarly attracted him by its symmetry. His despair was consequently unlimited.

Ordinarily the news of the lottery arrived by an inspector of roads, who passed through Keragouil a week or so after the announcement in the press; for the Comte, having surrendered his ticket, was only troubled lest he had won.

This time, to the upsetting of all history, an Englishman on a bicycle trip brought him a newspaper, an article almost unknown to Keragouil, where the shriek of the locomotive had yet to penetrate.

The Comte de Bonzag, opening the paper with the accustomed sinking of the heart, was startled by the staring headlines:

RESULTS OF THE LOTTERY

A glance at the winners of the first and second prizes reassured him. He drew a breath of satisfaction, saying gratefully; "Ah, what luck! God be praised! I'll never do that again!"

Then, remembering with only an idle curiosity the one hundred and forty-three mediocre prizes on the list, he returned to the perusal. Suddenly the print swam before his eyes, and the great esplanade seemed to rise. Number 77,707 had won the fourth prize of one hundred thousand francs; number 200,013, a prize of ten thousand francs.

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