He was, however, sufficiently himself to remember that I was a paid dependent.
"How is this ?" he cried.

"I call to see the Vicomte on important affairs, and he is out." "It is," I replied, "that the Vicomte de Clericy is not a man of affairs, but a gentleman of station and birth--that this is not an office, but a nobleman's private house." And I suppose I looked towards the door, for the Baron gasped out something that might have been an apology, and looked redder in the face.
"But, my good sir," he whined distractedly, "it is a matter of the utmost gravity.

It is a crisis in the money market.

A turn of the wheel may make me a poor man.

Where is the Vicomte?
Where are my twenty million francs ?" "The Vicomte has gone out, as is his custom before dejeuner, and your twenty millions are, so far as I know, safe in this house.