His last remark referred back to the time when Moessard was paying court to his queen and had promised the Governor that, in case he was successful, he would induce Her Majesty to invest some funds in our enterprise. All of us in the office were informed of that new prospect and deeply interested, as you may imagine, in its speedy realization, since our money depended on it. For two months that fable kept us in breathless suspense. We were consumed with anxiety, we scrutinized Moessard's face; we thought that the effects of his association with the lady were very visible there; and our old cashier, with his proud, serious air, would reply gravely from behind his grating, when we questioned him on the subject: "There's nothing new," or: "The affair's in good shape." With that everybody was content and we said to each other: "It's coming along, it's coming along," as if it were a matter in the ordinary course of business. No, upon my word, Paris is the only place in the world where such things can be seen. It positively makes one's head spin sometimes. The upshot of it was that, one fine morning, Moessard stopped coming to the office. He had succeeded, it seems; but the _Caisse Territoriale_ did not seem to him a sufficiently advantageous investment for his dear friend's funds. That was honorable, wasn't it? However, the sentiment of honor is so easily lost that one can scarcely believe it. When I think that I, Passajon, with my white hair, my venerable appearance, my spotless past--thirty years of academic service--have accustomed myself to living amid these infamies and base intrigues like a fish in water! One may well ask what I am doing here, why I remain here, how I happened to come here. How did I happen to come here? Oh! bless your soul, in the simplest way you can imagine. Nearly four years ago, my wife being dead and my children married, I had just accepted my retiring pension as apparitor to the Faculty, when an advertisement in the newspaper happened to come to my notice. "WANTED, a clerk of mature age at the _Caisse Territoriale_, 56 Boulevard Malesherbes. Good references." Let me make a confession at once. The modern Babylon had always tempted me. And then I felt that I was still vigorous, I could see ten active years before me, during which I might earn a little money, much perhaps, by investing my savings in the banking-house I was about to enter. So I wrote, inclosing my photograph by Crespon, Place De Marche, in which I am represented with a clean-shaven chin, a bright eye under my heavy white eyebrows, wearing my steel chain around my neck, my insignia as an academic official, "with the air of a conscript father on his curule chair!" as our dean, M. Chalmette, used to say. (Indeed he declared that I looked very much like the late Louis XVIII., only not so heavy.)