“Certainly, yes, the bounty will be doubled,” reflected the visionary, as he walked; and already he saw himself, a month thence, mounting with his comrades, for the New Year’s visit, the little staircase that led to Hemerlingue’s apartment.  He announced the good news to them; then he detained M. Joyeuse for a few words in private.  And, behold, that master habitually so cold in his manner, sheathed in his yellow fat as in a bale of raw silk, became affectionate, paternal, communicative.  He desired to know how many daughters Joyeuse had.

“I have three; no, I should say, four, M. le Baron.  I always confuse them.  The eldest is such a sensible girl.”

Further he wished to know their ages.

“Aline is twenty, M. le Baron.  She is the eldest.  Then we have Elise, who is preparing for the examination which she must pass when she is eighteen.  Henriette, who is fourteen, and Zara or Yaia who is only twelve.”

That pet name of Yaia intensely amused M. le Baron, who inquired next what were the resources of this interesting family.

“My salary, M. le Baron; nothing else.  I had a little money put aside, but my poor wife’s illness, the education of the girls—­”

“What you are earning is not sufficient, my dear Joyeuse.  I raise your salary to a thousand francs a month.”

“Oh, M. le Baron, it is too much.”

But although he had uttered this last sentence aloud, in the ear of a policeman who watched with a mistrustful eye the little man pass, gesticulating and nodding his head, the poor visionary awoke not.  With admiration he saw himself returning home, announcing the news to his daughters, taking them to the theatre in the evening in celebration of the happy day. Dieu! how pretty they looked in the front of their box, the Demoiselles Joyeuse, what a bouquet of rosy faces!  And then, the next day, the two eldest asked in marriage by—­Impossible to determine by whom, for M. Joyeuse had just suddenly found himself once more beneath the arch of the Hemerlingue establishment, before the swing-door surmounted by a “counting-house” in letters of gold.

“I shall always be the same, it seems,” said he to himself, laughing a little and passing his hand over his forehead, on which the perspiration stood in drops.

In a good humour as the result of this pleasant fancy and at the sight of the fire crackling in the suite of parquet-floored offices, with their screens of iron trellis-work and their air of secrecy in the cold light of the ground floor, where one could count the pieces of gold without dazzling his eyes, M. Joyeuse gave a gay greeting to the other clerks and slipped on his working coat and his black velvet cap.  Suddenly, some one whistled from upstairs, and the cashier, applying his ear to the tube, heard the oily and gelatinous voice of Hemerlingue, the sole and veritable Hemerlingue—­the other, the son, was always absent—­asking for M. Joyeuse.