“How have you spent it?” asked Dr. Cheron, never removing his eyes from my face.

I might have answered, in bouquets, opera stalls, and riding horses; in dress coats, tight boots, and white kid gloves; in new books, new music, bon-bons, cabs, perfumery, and the like inexcusable follies.  But I held my tongue instead, and said nothing.

Dr. Cheron looked again at his watch.

“Have you kept any entries of your expenses since you came to Paris?” said he.

“Not with—­with any regularity, sir,” I replied.

He took out his pencil-case and pocket-book.

“Let us try, then,” said he, “to make an average calculation of what they might be in five months.”

I began to feel very uncomfortable.

“I believe your father paid your travelling expenses?”

I bowed affirmatively.

“Leaving you the clear sum of one hundred and five pounds.”  I bowed again.

“Allowing, then, for your rent—­which is, I believe, twenty francs per week,” said he, entering the figures as he went on, “there will be four hundred francs spent in five months.  For your living, say thirty francs per week, which makes six hundred.  For your clothing, seventy-five per month, which makes three hundred and seventy-five, and ought to be quite enough for a young man of moderate tastes.  For your washing and firewood, perhaps forty per month, which makes two hundred—­and for your incidental expenses, say fifteen per week, which makes three hundred.  We thus arrive at a total of one thousand eight hundred and seventy-five francs, which, reduced to English money at the average standard of twenty-five francs to the sovereign, represents the exact sum of seventy-five pounds.  Do I make myself understood?”

I bowed for the third time.

“Of the original one hundred and five pounds, we now have thirty not accounted for.  May I ask how much of that surplus you have left?”

“About—­not more than—­than a hundred and twenty francs,” I replied, stripping the feathers off all the pens in succession, without knowing it.

“Have you any debts?”

“A—­a few.”

“Tailors’ bills?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What others?”

“A—­a couple of months’ rent, I believe, sir.”

“Is that all?”

“N—­not quite.”

Dr. Cheron frowned, and looked again at his watch.

“Be good enough, Mr. Arbuthnot,” he said, “to spare me this amount of useless interrogation by at once stating the nature and amount of the rest.”

“I—­I cannot positively state the amount, sir,” I said, absurdly trying to get the paper-weight into my waistcoat pocket, and then putting it down in great confusion.  “I—­I have an account at Monceau’s in the Rue Duphot, and...”

“I beg your pardon,” interrupted Dr. Cheron:  “but who is Monceau?”

“Monceau’s—­Monceau’s livery-stables, sir.”