When the Baroness at last managed to enter the banker's room amid the scramble of employees and remisiers, the hail of papers which had to be signed and of telegrams which had to be read, she found Gundermann suffering from a fearful cough which seemed to be tearing his throat away. Nevertheless he had been there since six o'clock in the morning—coughing and spitting, worn out with fatigue, it is true, but steadfast all the same. That day, as a foreign loan was to be issued on the morrow, the spacious room was invaded by an even more eager crowd than usual, and two of the banker's sons and one of his sons-in-law had been deputed to receive this whirlwind; whilst on the floor, near the narrow table which he had reserved for himself in the embrasure of a window, three of his grandchildren, two girls and a boy, were quarrelling with shrill cries over a doll, an arm and a leg of which had already been torn off and lay there beside them.
The Baroness at once brought forward the pretext which she had devised to explain her visit. 'Cher monsieur,' said she, 'I have come to pester you, which needs a deal of courage. It is with reference to a charity lottery——'
He did not allow her to finish, for he was very charitable, and always bought two tickets, especially when ladies whom he had met in society thus took the trouble to bring them to him. However, he had to keep her waiting for a moment, for an employee came to submit some papers to him. They spoke of vast sums of money in hurried words.
'Fifty-two millions, you say? And the credit was?'
'Sixty millions, monsieur.'
'Well, carry it to seventy-five millions.'
Then he was returning to the Baroness, when he overheard a word or two of a conversation between his son-in-law and a remisier, and this started him off again. 'Not at all,' he interrupted. 'At the rate of five hundred and eighty-seven fifty, that makes ten sous less per share.'
'Oh! monsieur,' said the remisier, humbly, 'it would only make forty-three francs less!'
'What, forty-three francs! Why, it is enormous! Do you think that I steal money? Every one his due; I know no rule but that!'