It was the usage for the brethren of his order to go about Paris barefoot, begging. They were not permitted by the _concierges_ to go into the great apartment hotels. But “Carron, _il est très fin_,” said my informant; “you know,--'e is var' smart.” Carron would learn, by careful inquiry, the name of a resident on an upper floor; then he would appear at the _concierge's_ door, and would mention the name of this resident with such adroit, demure, and absolute confidence that he would be permitted at once to ascend. Once inside, he would go the rounds of the apartments. So he would get five times as much in a day as any of his fellows. A certain amount of the receipts he would yield up to the treasury of the monastery; the rest he kept for himself. After a while this came to be suspected, and he quietly withdrew to a new country. There was not the slightest tangible corroboration of this story. It might have been the merest gossip or the invention of an enemy. But it fitted Carron so perfectly, that from the day I heard it I could never, somehow, question its substantial truth. If I had questioned it, I should have repeated the story to him, to give him an opportunity to answer. But something warned me not to do so. Fidèle held on well at the custom-house, and I think that he became a general favorite. No one who took the old soldier by the hand and looked him in the eye could question his absolute honesty; and as for skill in his duties,--well, it was the custom-house. But he was not saving much money. He was free to give and free to lend to his fellow-countrymen; and, moreover, various ways were pointed out to him by Mr. Fox, from time to time, in which an old soldier, delighting to aid his country, could serve her pecuniarily. The republic,--that is, the Republicans,--it was all one. One afternoon, late in summer, Fidèle appeared at my office. He seldom visited me, except quarterly for his pension affidavit. As he came in now, I saw that something had happened. His grisly face wore the same kindly smile that it had always borne, but the light had gone out of it. His story was short. He had lost his place. He had been notified that his services would not be needed after Saturday. No reason had been given him; he was simply dismissed in humiliation. There must be some misunderstanding, such as occurs between the warmest friends. And was not the great government his friend? Did it not send him his pension regularly? Had it not sent a special messenger to seek him out, in his obscurity, for this position; and was he not far better suited to it now than at the outset?