panting, radiant, as on the triumphal evening of a great battle. 'Well, what did I tell you?' cried Pillerault, delighted. Pulling a very long face, Moser growled out some sullen threats. 'Yes, yes,' said he; 'don't holloa till you are out of the wood. There's the Mexican bill to pay; there are the affairs of Rome, which have become still more entangled since Mentana; and then one of these fine mornings Germany will fall on us. Yes, yes, and to think that those imbeciles keep going up and up, in order, no doubt, that they may fall from a greater height! Ah! it is all over, you'll soon see!' Then, as Salmon, who was looking at him, remained grave this time, he added: 'Such is your opinion, too, is it not? When things go too well a crash is generally at hand.' Meanwhile the hall was emptying; there would soon be nothing left in the air but the cigar-smoke, a bluish cloud, thickened and yellowed by all the flying dust. Mazaud and Jacoby, resuming their prim deportment, had gone back into the brokers' room together, the latter more worried by his secret private losses than by the defeat of his customers; while the former, who did not gamble, was filled with delight at the gallant way in which the last quotation had been carried. They talked for a few minutes with Delarocque in order to exchange engagements, still holding their memorandum-books, full of notes, which their settlement clerks would classify that afternoon, in order to debit or credit the various customers with the transactions that had been effected. Meantime, in the clerks' hall--a low, pillared hall, looking not unlike an ill-kept school-room, with its rows of desks and a cloak-room at the farther end--Flory and Gustave Sédille, who had gone there to get their hats, began noisily rejoicing while waiting to know the mean quotation, which the employees of the syndicate, taking the highest and lowest quotations, were now calculating at one of the desks. Towards half-past three, when the placard had been posted on a pillar, Flory and Gustave neighed, and clucked, and crowed, in their satisfaction with the fine result of their deal in Fayeux' orders to purchase. This meant a pair of solitaires for Chuchu, who was now tyrannising Flory with her demands, and six months' allowance in advance for Gustave's _inamorata_. Meantime the uproar continued in the clerks' hall, what with a succession of silly farces, a massacre of hats, and jostling such as that of school-boys just released from their lessons. And, on the other side, under the peristyle, the _coulisse_ completed various transactions; while Nathansohn, delighted with his deal, wended his way down the steps through the ranks of the last speculators, who were still hanging about in spite of the cold, which had become terrible. By six o'clock all these gamblers, brokers, _coulissiers_, and _remisiers_, after calculating their gain or loss, or preparing their brokerage bills, had gone home to dress, in order to wind up the day