This time he would not open the door; it was a creditor, without doubt.

And he continued his correspondence.
But for four years he had waited for chance to draw him a good ticket in the lottery of life--a rich patient afflicted with a cyst or a tumor that he would take to a fashionable surgeon, who would divide with him the ten or fifteen thousand francs that he would receive for the operation.

In that case he would be saved.
He ran to the door.

The patient with the cyst presented himself in the form of a small bearded man with a red face, wearing over his vest the wine-merchant's apron of coarse black cloth.

In fact, it was the wine merchant from the corner, who, having heard of the officer's visit, came to ask for the payment of his bill for furnishing wine for three months.
A scene similar to that which he had had with the coal merchant, but more violent, took place, and it was only by threatening to put him out of the door that Saniel got rid of the man, who went away declaring that he would come the next morning with an officer.
Saniel returned to his work.
His pen flew over the paper, when a noise made him raise his head.
Either he had not closed the door tightly, or his servant was entering with his key.