He troubled himself not at all about the three or four other tenants of the same vast country-house.

Certain, through a long lease, of ending his days there, he lived rather plainly, served by an old cook and the former maid of the late Madame Cardot,--both of whom expected to reap an annuity of some six hundred francs apiece on the old man's death.

These two women took the utmost care of him, and were all the more interested in doing so because no one was ever less fussy or less fault-finding than he.

The apartment, furnished by the late Madame Cardot, had remained in the same condition for the last six years,--the old man being perfectly contented with it.

He spent in all not more than three thousand francs a year there; for he dined in Paris five days in the week, and returned home at midnight in a hackney-coach, which belonged to an establishment at Courtille.