But I did not do it, Sir.  No, I did not do it.  I kept him on at the office as my confidential servant; I gave him all the crumbs that fell from mine own table, and he helped himself to the rest.  I made as little difference as I could in my intercourse with him.  I continued to treat him almost as an equal.  The only difference I did make in our mode of life was that I no longer gave him bed and board at the hostelry where I lodged in Passy, but placed the chair-bedstead in the anteroom of the office permanently at his disposal, and allowed him five sous a day for his breakfast.

But owing to the scarcity of business that now came my way, Theodore had little or nothing to do, and he was in very truth eating his head off, and with that, grumble, grumble all the time, threatening to leave me, if you please, to leave my service for more remunerative occupation.  As if anyone else would dream of employing such an out-at-elbows mudlark—­a jail-bird, Sir, if you’ll believe me.

Thus the Spring of 1816 came along.  Spring, Sir, with its beauty and its promises, and the thoughts of love which come eternally in the minds of those who have not yet wholly done with youth.  Love, Sir!  I dreamed of it on those long, weary afternoons in April, after I had consumed my scanty repast, and whilst Theodore in the anteroom was snoring like a hog.  At even, when tired out and thirsty, I would sit for a while outside a humble cafe on the outer boulevards, I watched the amorous couples wander past me on their way to happiness.  At night I could not sleep, and bitter were my thoughts, my revilings against a cruel fate that had condemned me—­a man with so sensitive a heart and so generous a nature—­to the sorrows of perpetual solitude.

That, Sir, was my mood, when on a never-to-be-forgotten afternoon toward the end of April, I sat mooning disconsolately in my private room and a timid rat-tat at the outer door of the apartment roused Theodore from his brutish slumbers.  I heard him shuffling up to the door, and I hurriedly put my necktie straight and smoothed my hair, which had become disordered despite the fact that I had only indulged in a very abstemious dejeuner.

When I said that the knock at my door was in the nature of a timid rat-rat I did not perhaps describe it quite accurately.  It was timid, if you will understand me, and yet bold, as coming from one who might hesitate to enter and nevertheless feels assured of welcome.  Obviously a client, I thought.

Effectively, Sir, the next moment my eyes were gladdened by the sight of a lovely woman, beautifully dressed, young, charming, smiling but to hide her anxiety, trustful, and certainly wealthy.

The moment she stepped into the room I knew that she was wealthy; there was an air of assurance about her which only those are able to assume who are not pestered with creditors.  She wore two beautiful diamond rings upon her hands outside her perfectly fitting glove, and her bonnet was adorned with flowers so exquisitely fashioned that a butterfly would have been deceived and would have perched on it with delight.