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The Man of Forty Crowns.
little of history, and something of geometry, but I do not understand a word of Latin.
The Geometrician.—The sense is pretty nearly as follows: There is wrong on both sides. Keep to a medium in everything. Nothing too much.
The Man of Forty Crowns.—I say, nothing too much; that is really my situation; but the worst of it is, I have not enough.
The Geometrician.—I allow that you must perish of want, and I, too, and the state, too, if the new administration should continue only two years longer; but it is to be hoped heaven will have mercy on us.
The Man of Forty Crowns.—We pass our lives in hope, and die hoping to the last. Adieu, sir; you have enlightened me, but my heart is grieved.
The Geometrician.—This is, indeed, often the fruit of knowledge.
CHAPTER IV.
AN ADVENTURE WITH A CARMELITE.
When I had thanked the academician of the Academy of Sciences for having set me right, I went away quite out of heart, praising Providence, but muttering between my teeth these doleful words: "What! to have no more than forty crowns a year to live on, nor more than twenty-two years to live! Alas! may our life be yet shorter, since it is to be so miserable!"