Edouard stopped instinctively, and like all the rest, gazed at the seductive list. Seventy-five thousand francs won with twenty sous! That was very enticing! To be sure, the winner had had a _quaterne_; that is very rare; but still it has been seen, and one man’s chance is as good as another’s. “Ah! neighbor, what a fine drawing!” said a fish dealer to a fruit woman, who stood near Edouard, copying the result of the lottery; “11, 20, 44, 19, 76.--I ought to be as rich as a queen to-day. Here, for more than a year I have been following up a _dry terne_ on the first three numbers that come out; the day before yesterday was the last day. I was waiting for Thomas, who works at La Vallée; he was going to bring me a goose stuffed with chestnuts for our supper, with some sixteen-sou wine from Eustache’s at the Barreaux Verts, which has a fine bouquet! It was my idea to have a nice little supper in a private room--that brings luck--and to take my ticket when we went home to bed.--But not a bit of it. Thomas kept me cooling my heels, waiting for him. I got tired of it and went to his garret, and he had colic in the loins from dancing too much on Sunday at the _Rabbits_. I had to stay and nurse him, the closing time passed and I forgot my _dry terne_ while I was giving him injections.” “Poor Françoise! that was hard luck.--Well! my poor dead man might have had pains in his belly--that wouldn’t ‘a’ made me forget my tickets! For the last ten years I’ve always paid my rent with number 20; it went a little by the date this time, but I got it all the same--I put my counterpane up the spout to do it. You see, I’d rather have sold my chemise than dropped it, for I was bound to have it.” “Do you know any of those that won the big prize?” “Why, the dry goods dealer’s cook. Three numbers taken out of the wheel at random!” “That’s what I call luck!” “Oh! it ain’t to be wondered at; she dreamed that her master used the soup-kettle for a chamber.” “Then it was sure money! I’m down on my luck; I’ve never been able to dream of nasty things.” “Oh! as for me, I often used to dream some in my late husband’s time.” Edouard turned away, forcing a passage through the crowd in front of the office. As he walked along he thought of the numbers that had come out. It was not so quick a way of getting rich as roulette, the chances were less favorable; but the results, when one is lucky, are much more advantageous, as one may win a large sum with a modest coin. He passed the day thinking about the lottery, and the next morning he decided to tempt fortune in that new manner. He entered the first office that he saw; and he had not to go far, for lottery offices are more numerous than poor relief offices.