Theoretically there are twelve of us at the _Caisse Territoriale_, including the Governor and the dandy Moessard, manager of the _Verite Financiere_; but really there are less than half that number. In the first place, since the _Verite_ ceased to appear--that was two years ago--M. Moessard hasn't once set foot inside our doors. It seems that he is swimming in honors and wealth, that he has for a dear friend a queen, a real queen, who gives him all the money he wants. Oh! what a Babylon this Paris is! The others look in occasionally to see if by chance there is anything new at the _Caisse_; and, as there never is, weeks pass without our seeing them. Four or five faithful ones, poor old fellows all, like myself, persist in appearing regularly every morning, at the same hour, as a matter of habit, because they have nothing else to do, and are at a loss to know what to turn their hand to; but they all busy themselves with matters that have no connection whatever with the office. One must live, there's no doubt of that! And then a man cannot pass his day lounging from chair to chair, from window to window, to look out (eight front windows on the boulevard). So we try to get such work as we can. For my part, I write for Mademoiselle Seraphine and another cook in the house. Then I write up my memoirs, which takes no small amount of time. Our receiving teller--there's a fellow who hasn't a very laborious task with us--makes netting for a house that deals in fishermen's supplies. One of our two copyists, who writes a beautiful hand, copies plays for a dramatic agency; the other makes little toys worth a sou, which are sold by hucksters at the street corners toward New Year's Day, and in that way succeeds in keeping himself from starving to death the rest of the year. Our cashier is the only one who does no outside work. He would think that he had forfeited his honor. He is a very proud man, who never complains, and whose only fear is that he may seem to be short of linen. Locked into his office, he employs his time from morning till night, making shirt-fronts, collars and cuffs out of paper. He has attained very great skill, and his linen, always dazzlingly white, would deceive any one, were it not that, at the slightest movement, when he walks, when he sits down, it cracks as if he had a pasteboard box in his stomach. Unluckily all that paper does not feed him; and he is so thin, he has such a gaunt look, that one wonders what he can live on. Between ourselves, I suspect him of sometimes paying a visit to my pantry. That's an easy matter for him; for, in his capacity of cashier, he has the "word" that opens the secret lock, and I fancy that, when my back is turned, he does a little foraging among my supplies.