Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 14, 2025
Pere Planus never raised his nose from his desk; one could see him from the little garden, leaning over his great ledgers, jotting down in magnificently molded figures the profits of the Risler press. Risler still worked as before, without change or rest.
"I should like you to give me the letter, you know, the little letter and the package." Sigismond stared at him in amazement. In his innocence, he had imagined that Risler never thought of Sidonie, that he had entirely forgotten her. "What you want ?" "Ah! I have well earned it; I can think of myself a little now. I have thought enough of others." "You are right," said Planus.
"What money?" demanded Claire, for she no longer remembered why she had gone to Savigny. "Hush! The funds to meet my note to-morrow. Monsieur Georges, when he went out, told me that you would hand it to me very soon." "Ah! yes true. The hundred thousand francs." "I haven't them, Monsieur Planus; I haven't anything."
Fromont Jeune had come in person, six months before, to collect the balance in their hands. Sigismond felt that his strength was going. But he summoned courage to say: "Ah! yes; true. I had forgotten. Sigismond Planus is growing old, that is plain. I am failing, my children, I am failing."
He darted toward the narrow staircase; and Claire, relying upon his word, remained with Planus during one of those supreme moments of uncertainty which seem interminable because of all the conjectures with which they are thronged. A few moments later the sound of hurried steps, the rustling of silk filled the dark and narrow staircase.
Then all three began to laugh at the same moment, and heartily too, as if at a joke, a rather broad joke, on the part of the old cashier. "Go along with you, you sly old Pere Planus!" The old man laughed with them! He laughed without any desire to laugh, simply to do as the others did. At last they explained.
At that hour, on the road near the fortifications, was an endless procession of soldiers and market-gardeners, guard-mounting, officers' horses out for exercise, sutlers with their paraphernalia, all the bustle and activity that is seen in the morning in the neighborhood of forts. Planus was striding along amid the tumult, when suddenly he stopped.
Monsieur Chorche, Monsieur Chorche," muttered poor Sigismond; and while he pursued his journey, with bowed head and trembling legs, Madame Fromont Jeune's carriage passed him close, on its way to the Orleans station; but Claire did not see old Planus, any more than she had seen, when she left her house a few moments earlier, Monsieur Chebe in his long frock-coat and the illustrious Delobelle in his stovepipe hat, turning into the Rue des Vieilles-Haudriettes at opposite ends, each with the factory and Risler's wallet for his objective point.
"I should like you to give me the letter, you know, the little letter and the package." Sigismond stared at him in amazement. In his innocence, he had imagined that Risler never thought of Sidonie, that he had entirely forgotten her. "What you want ?" "Ah! I have well earned it; I can think of myself a little now. I have thought enough of others." "You are right," said Planus.
"It is the husband's fault," would be the verdict of "Mademoiselle Planus, my sister." "It is the wife's fault," "Monsieur Planus, my brother," would reply. "Oh! the men " "Oh! the women " That was their one never-failing subject of discussion in those rare hours of idleness which old Sigismond set aside in his busy day, which was as carefully ruled off as his account-books.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking