Other People's Money

His wife had drawn near to him, and taken his hand. "The misfortune is immense," she said, "but not irreparable. We will sell everything we have."

"Have you not friends? Are we not here," insisted the others,--M. Desclavettes, M. Desormeaux, and M. Chapelain.

Gently he pushed his wife aside, and coldly.

"All we had," he said, "would be as a grain of sand in an ocean. But we have no longer anything; we are ruined."

"Ruined!" exclaimed M. Desormeaux,--"ruined! And where are the forty-five thousand francs I placed into your hands?"

He made no reply.

"And our hundred and twenty thousand francs?" groaned M. and Mme. Desclavettes.

"And my sixty thousand francs?" shouted M. Chapelain, with a blasphemous oath.

The cashier shrugged his shoulders. "Lost," he said, "irrevocably lost!"

Then their rage exceeded all bounds. Then they forgot that this unfortunate man had been their friend for twe