He did not stay with the stout lady for long, but the changes he made were rarely of great advantage. Once he found employment at a small stationer’s, which bade fair to prove pleasanter, but from here he fled precipitately on account of the amorous importunities of the stationer’s younger daughter. She, poor child, had lost the affections of a certain artisan, who lodged in the same house, and sought to regain them by exciting jealousy. In the pursuance of this time-worn device she proposed to sacrifice Wynne, and was prepared to go to no mean lengths in order to give the affair a colourable pretence of reality. Wherefore Wynne ran, not so much from the probable fury of the artisan as from a vague fear which he did not entirely understand. After this episode he became a waiter—or, to be exact, a wine boy. In this branch of employment he was rather happier, although much of it proved irksome and distasteful. He found that a waiter is allowed, and even encouraged, to possess a personality. In the other callings in which he had worked personality was condemned, but customers welcome an individual note in a waiter. It helps them to identify him among his similarly arrayed companions, and affords them opportunity for a lavish expenditure of wit and sarcasm not always in the best taste. For the first time Wynne was able to save a little money, which he put by towards paying the price of a passage to England. He had decided to leave Paris as soon as he had accumulated enough to pay the cost of travel. In this matter, however, a certain inconsistency forced him to remain. He would save the best part of the two pounds required, and, a day or so before departure, would yield to an irresistible impulse and spend several francs on the purchase of a book. He did this about a dozen times altogether, and although the habit formed the nucleus of a library, it postponed his departure indefinitely. At last he had in his possession the required sum, and determined to leave Paris at the close of the week, but certain pneumonic cocci floating in the atmosphere and seeking a human abiding place, had other plans for him, and by the Sunday morning, high-temperatured and semi-conscious, he lay in his bed with a perilously slender hold upon life. M. le Patron had been aware of Wynne’s intention to depart, and had been wishful of retaining his services. Without Wynne it would be impossible for an honest man to display in his window the legend “English spoken,” an announcement which stimulated trade among foreigners. Accordingly he put himself to the trouble of engaging a doctor, whose injunctions in regard to the treatment of the invalid he very faithfully followed. It should be stated that he was no less faithful in recording the out-of-pocket expenses incurred, which at the close of a six weeks’ illness were presented to Wynne in the manner of a debt.