He cut a piece of Gruyere, the girl watching him the while with her
narrow eyes. Laguitte laughed; Rose's unparalleled ugliness amused

him immensely. He whispered in the captain's ear, "She is ripping!
There never was such a nose and such a mouth! You ought to send her

to the colonel's someday as a curiosity. It would amuse him to see
her."

More and more struck by this phenomenal ugliness, the major felt a
paternal desire to examine the girl more closely.

"Come here," he said, "I want some cheese too."
She brought the plate, and Laguitte, sticking the knife in the

Gruyere, stared at her, grinning the while because he discovered
that she had one nostril broader than the other. Rose gravely

allowed herself to be looked at, waiting till the gentleman had done
laughing.

She removed the cloth and disappeared. Burle immediately went to
sleep in the chimney corner while the major and Mme Burle began to

chat. Charles had returned to his exercises. Quietude fell from
the loft ceiling; the quietude of a middle-class household gathered

in concord around their fireside. At nine o'clock Burle woke up,
yawned and announced that he was going off to bed; he apologized but

declared that he could not keep his eyes open. Half an hour later,
when the major took his leave, Mme Burle vainly called for Rose to

light him downstairs; the girl must have gone up to her room; she
was, indeed, a regular hen, snoring the round of the clock without

waking.
"No need to disturb anybody," said Laguitte on the landing; "my legs

are not much better than yours, but if I get hold of the banisters I
shan't break any bones. Now, my dear lady, I leave you happy; your

troubles are ended at last. I watched Burle closely, and I'll take
my oath that he's guileless as a child. Dash it--after all, it was

high time for Petticoat Burle to reform; he was going downhill
fast."

The major went away fully satisfied with the house and its inmates;
the walls were of glass and could harbor no equivocal conduct. What

particularly delighted him in his friend's return to virtue was that
it absolved him from the obligation of verifying the accounts.

Nothing was more distasteful to him than the inspection of a number
of ledgers, and as long as Burle kept steady, he--Laguitte--could

smoke his pipe in peace and sign the books in all confidence.
However, he continued to keep one eye open for a little while longer

and found the receipts genuine, the entries correct, the columns
admirably balanced. A month later he contented himself with

glancing at the receipts and running his eye over the totals. Then
one morning, without the slightest suspicion of there being anything

wrong, simply because he had lit a second pipe and had nothing to
do, he carelessly added up a row of figures and fancied that he

detected an error of thirteen francs. The balance seemed perfectly
correct, and yet he was not mistaken; the total outlay was thirteen

francs more than the various sums for which receipts were furnished.
It looked queer, but he said nothing to Burle, just making up his

mind to examine the next accounts closely. On the following week he
detected a fresh error of nineteen francs, and then, suddenly

becoming alarmed, he shut himself up with the books and spent a
wretched morning poring over them, perspiring, swearing and feeling

as if his very skull were bursting with the figures. At every page
he discovered thefts of a few francs--the most miserable petty

thefts--ten, eight, eleven francs, latterly, three and four; and,
indeed, there was one column showing that Burle had pilfered just

one franc and a half. For two months, however, he had been steadily
robbing the cashbox, and by comparing dates the major found to his

disgust that the famous lesson respecting Gagneux had only kept him
straight for one week! This last discovery infuriated Laguitte, who

struck the books with his clenched fists, yelling through a shower
of oaths:

"This is more abominable still! At least there was some pluck about
those forged receipts of Gagneux. But this time he is as

contemptible as a cook charging twopence extra for her cabbages.
Powers of hell! To pilfer a franc and a half and clap it in his

pocket! Hasn't the brute got any pride then? Couldn't he run away
with the safe or play the fool with actresses?"

The pitiful meanness of these pilferings revolted the major, and,
moreover, he was enraged at having been duped a second time,

deceived by the simple, stupid dodge of falsified additions. He
rose at last and paced his office for a whole hour, growling aloud.

"This gives me his measure. Even if I were to thresh him to a jelly
every morning he would still drop a couple of coins into his pocket

every afternoon. But where can he spend it all? He is never seen
abroad; he goes to bed at nine, and everything looks so clean and

proper over there. Can the brute have vices that nobody knows of?"
He returned to the desk, added up the subtracted money and found a

total of five hundred and forty-five francs. Where was this
deficiency to come from? The inspection was close at hand, and if

the crotchety colonel should take it into his head to examine a
single page, the murder would be out and Burle would be done for.

This idea froze the major, who left off cursing, picturing Mme Burle
erect and despairing" target="_blank" title="a.感到绝望的">despairing, and at the same time he felt his heart swell

with personal grief and shame.
"Well," he muttered, "I must first of all look into the rogue's

business; I will act afterward."
As he walked over to Burle's office he caught sight of a skirt

vanishing through the doorway. Fancying that he had a clue to the
mystery, he slipped up quietly and listened and speedily recognized

Melanie's shrill voice. She was complaining of the gentlemen of the
divan. She had signed a promissory note which she was unable to

meet; the bailiffs were in the house, and all her goods would be
sold. The captain, however, barely replied to her. He alleged that

he had no money, whereupon she burst into tears and began to coax
him. But her blandishments were apparently ineffectual, for Burle's

husky voice could be heard repeating, "Impossible! Impossible!"
And finally the widow withdrew in a toweringpassion. The major,

amazed at the turn affairs were taking, waited a few moments longer
before entering the office, where Burle had remained alone. He

found him very calm, and despite his furiousinclination to call him
names he also remained calm, determined to begin by finding out the

exact truth.
The office certainly did not look like a swindler's den. A cane-

seated chair, covered with an honest leather cushion, stood before
the captain's desk, and in a corner there was the locked safe.

Summer was coming on, and the song of a canary sounded through the
open window. The apartment was very neat and tidy, redolent of old

papers, and altogether its appearance inspired one with confidence.
"Wasn't it Melanie who was leaving here as I came along?" asked

Laguitte.
Burle shrugged his shoulders.

"Yes," he mumbled. "She has been dunning me for two hundred francs,
but she can't screw ten out of me--not even tenpence."

"Indeed!" said the major, just to try him. "I heard that you had
made up with her."

"I? Certainly not. I have done with the likes of her for good."
Laguitte went away, feeling greatly perplexed. Where had the five

hundred and forty-five francs gone? Had the idiot taken to drinking
or gambling? He decided to pay Burle a surprise visit that very

evening at his own house, and maybe by questioning his mother he
might learn something. However, during the afternoon his leg became

very painful; latterly he had been feeling in ill-health, and he had
to use a stick so as not to limp too outrageously. This stick

grieved him sorely, and he declared with angry despair that he was
now no better than a pensioner. However, toward the evening, making

a strong effort, he pulled himself out of his armchair and, leaning
heavily on his stick, dragged himself through the darkness to the