"M.

de Brahmin will arrange the papers for us to-morrow." He turned back toward his private desk.
"And now," thought he, "I am acting without resolving.

No merit; no strength of will; no clearness of purpose; no emphatic decision; nothing but a yielding to temptation." And M.Grandissime spoke truly; but it is only whole men who so yield--yielding to the temptation to do right.
He passed into the counting-room, to M.De Brahmin, and standing there talked in an inaudible tone, leaning over the upturned spectacles of his manager, for nearly an hour.

Then, saying he would go to dinner, he went out.

He did not dine at home nor at the Veau-qui-tete, nor at any of the clubs; so much is known; he merely disappeared for two or three hours and was not seen again until late in the afternoon, when two or three Brahmins and Grandissimes, wandering about in search of him, met him on the levee near the head of the rue Bienville, and with an exclamation of wonder and a look of surprise at his dusty shoes, demanded to know where he had hid himself while they had been ransacking the town in search of him.
"We want you to tell us what you will do about our titles." He smiled pleasantly, the picture of serenity, and replied: "I have not fully made up my mind yet; as soon as I do so I will let you know." There was a word or two more exchanged, and then, after a moment of silence, with a gentle "Eh, bien," and a gesture to which they were accustomed, he stepped away backward, they resumed their hurried walk and talk, and he turned into the rue Bienville..