My happiness was further damped by the fact that luck ran steadily against me, and I saw my bonus dwindling very rapidly.

I suppose I may as well be frank, and confess that my bonus, to speak strictly, vanished within six months after I first set foot in "Mon Repos," and I found it necessary to make that temporary use of the "interest fund," which the President had indicated as open to me under the terms of our bargain.

However, my uneasiness on this score was lightened when the next installment of interest was punctually paid, and, with youthful confidence, I made little doubt that luck would turn before long.
Thus time passed on, and the beginning of 1884 found us all leading an apparently merry and untroubled life.

In public affairs the temper was very different.

The scarcity of money was intense, and serious murmuring had arises when the President "squandered" his ready money in buying interest, leaving his civil servants and soldiers unpaid.
This was the topic of much discussion in the press at the time, when I went up one March evening to the signorina's.