COUNTING IT OUT 



^et my cocher to take the article down to the office for 

 you." As I was in a pretty good mood for work, I did 

 a column and a bit in quicker time than usual. I 

 had noticed that he had been patting his coat and vest 

 several times. 



" How much did you win ? " he asked. I soon 

 figured it out, and it came to about one hundred and 

 forty louis — that is, about two thousand eight hundred 

 francs, including the two hundred francs I had given 

 him. It was useful, I can tell you, that thirty -two-to- 

 one chance with the seven- to-one win to finish up with. 

 He had not moved up to then, but taking out a note- 

 case said : " Give me two hundred francs," and he took 

 out three mille notes (one thousand francs each). I 

 took them from him. 



" Now let us see what you have won," I said ; and 

 then he began to disgorge. From his coat inside 

 pockets, from his trouser pockets outside, and inside 

 his waistcoat came out packets and twisted lumps 

 of paper — fifty-franc, one-hundred-franc, and one- 

 thousand-franc notes. He threw them on the table 

 bit by bit, and asked me to smooth them out and count 

 them. What an exhilarating job it was. I couldn't 

 help being slightly envious at first that I had not let 

 myself go ; but it was very simple : I couldn't afford 

 it ; in fact, I hadn't the money to do it with. He would 

 have enjoyed the day even if he hadn't backed a winner, 

 but it is human to love winning. When I arrived at 

 about twenty thousand francs there were still many 

 crumpled-up balls of notes remaining. I went on — 

 thirty thousand, thirty-one thousand, thirty-three 

 thousand, and so on up to forty thousand. He had 

 picked up the nice little parcel of over forty thousand 

 francs, or well over sixteen hundred pounds. The 

 rascal had put on a great deal more on several events 



133 



