"Are you the chief of a bureau now?"
"Better than that, my friend!—I have consigned the bureau to all the devils!—I have twenty-five thousand francs a year!"
"Twenty-five thousand?"
"Yes, my friend! yes, I, Jules-Raoul Robineau! I am going to set up a carriage! I am rich—almost as rich as you; not quite so rich yet to be sure, but it may come. When one is on the road to wealth—Yes—wait a minute, till I sit down. I am exhausted! Since I have had twenty-five thousand francs a year, I have suffered from palpitations; indeed, there are times when I really can’t breathe!"
Robineau threw himself on a couch, took out his handkerchief, wiped his face, loosened the waistband of his trousers so that he could breathe more easily, in fact, made himself perfectly comfortable. It was plain that money had already produced its effect, and that he was no longer the humble government clerk who bowed to the floor before he ventured to take a chair in the salons of his friend the Baron de Marcey. But wealth long ago proved its power to change the temper, the disposition, the aspect and manners of a person, and it is probable that the lessons of the past will always be thrown away, because men will be no better to-morrow than they were yesterday.
Alfred, who considered that there was no reason why his friend’s newly acquired wealth should prevent him from washing, had resumed his suddenly interrupted occupation, and waited tranquilly for Robineau to explain himself more at length. At last, after putting one foot on a stool, and looking about for a chair on which to put the other, the ex-clerk continued:
"My dear fellow, you must have heard me say that I had an uncle who sailed for the Indies when he was very young."
"Oh, yes! and you have never heard from him, and he has come home enormously rich. That’s what happens in all the vaudevilles."
"I am not talking about vaudevilles.—This uncle, my father’s brother, left home.—My dear parents never heard of him again.—They died, leaving me nothing but an education, which, I venture to say, is——"
"Go on, go on! I was at school with you, and I know that somebody else always had to write your translations and your themes; but no matter!"