they will make more by paying me small wages than by earning big wages with you. You will see that I am right, Monsieur Emile, and everybody will tell you so some time; but it will be too late to repent of having put their necks in the halter!" Emile could not overcome the carpenter's obstinacy, and he returned home even more depressed than when he went out. That incorruptible workingman's predictions caused him a vague alarm. As he approached the factory he met his father's secretary, Monsieur Galuchet, a stout young man, very talented in the way of ciphering, but of very limited capacity in other respects. It was the hour of repose and Galuchet was taking advantage of it to fish for gudgeons. This was his favorite pastime; and when he had a goodly number in his basket, he would count them, and adding the count to the total of his previous catches, would say proudly as he wound up his line: "This is the seven hundred and eighty-second gudgeon I have caught with this hook in two months. I am very sorry I didn't count what I caught last year." Emile leaned against a tree to watch him fish. The fellow's phlegmatic watchfulness and puerile patience disgusted him. He could not understand how he could be perfectly happy just because he had a salary that placed him out of reach of want. He tried to make him talk, saying to himself that he might perhaps find beneath that thick envelope some ray of light, some sympathetic chord which would make that young man's society a source of comfort to him in his distress. But Monsieur Cardonnet selected his subordinates with an unerring eye and hand. Constant Galuchet was a fool; he understood nothing, knew nothing outside of arithmetic and bookkeeping. When he had been at work at his figures for twelve hours he had just enough reasoning power left to catch gudgeons. However, Emile by mere chance led him to say certain things that cast an ominous light into his mind. That human machine was capable of reckoning profits and losses and of figuring the balance at the foot of a sheet of paper. While exhibiting the most complete ignorance of Monsieur Cardonnet's plans and resources, Constant observed that the wages of the men were exorbitant and that, if they were not reduced by half in two months, the funds invested in the enterprise would be insufficient. "But that doesn't disturb monsieur your father," he added; "you pay your workmen as you feed a horse, according to the amount of work you require of him. When you double his work you double his pay, as you double the quantity of oats; then, when you're no longer in such a hurry, you cut down the pay or the rations proportionately." "My father won't do that," said Emile; "he might with horses, but not with men." "Don't say that, monsieur," rejoined Galuchet; "monsieur your father knows what he's about, he won't do anything foolish, never fear."