CHAPTER IV.
Disqualified "Rever c'est le bonheur; attendre c'est la vie." The Vicomte de Clericy's answer was favourable to my suit, and I duly received permission to install myself in the apartments lately vacated by Charles Miste--whoever he may have been.
"And what, sir, is to become of me ?" inquired my servant, when I instructed him to pack my clothes and made known to him my movements in the immediate future.

I had forgotten Loomer.

A secretary could scarcely come into residence attended by a valet, rejoicing in the usual direct or indirect emoluments, and possessing that abnormal appetite which only belongs to the man servant living in the kitchen.
I told him, therefore, that his future was entirely his own, and that while his final fate was unquestionable, the making of his earthly career remained, for the present, in his own hands.

In fact, I gave him permission to commence at once his descent to that bourne whither, I feared, his footsteps would tend.
Mr.Loomer was good enough to evince signs of emotion, and from a somewhat confused speech, I gathered that he refused to go to Avernus until he could make the journey in my service and at my heels.
Ultimately it was agreed, however, that he should seek a temporary situation--he was a man of many talents, and as handy in the stable as in a gentleman's dressing-room--and remain therein until I should require his services again.

As it happened, I had sufficient ready cash to pay him his wages, with an additional sum to compensate for the brevity of his notice to quit a sorry service.