There is, indeed, less harm in Frenchmen than they--sad dogs!--would have you believe.

They are, as a rule, domesticated individuals, with a pretty turn for mixing a salad.
Within the narrow but gay waistcoat of this son of Paris there beat as kind a little eager French heart as one may wish to deal with.
"Bon Dieu!" Alphonse would exclaim, when convinced that he had been robbed or cheated.

"What will you?
I am like that.

I daresay the poor devil wanted the money badly--and I do not miss it." There is a charity that gives, and another that allows the needy to take.
It was the Baron Giraud's great desire that Alphonse should be a gentleman of the great world, moving in his narrow orbit in the first circles of Parisian society, which was nothing to boast of in those days, and has steadily declined ever since.

To attain such an eminence, the astute financier knew as well as any that only one thing was really necessary--namely, money.