box, and there, alas! I had to leave it. But how shall I tell you what I felt when my Cousin Lucien said to me, 'I have a present for you, too. Come into my bedroom.' I followed him. Taking two coins from his purse, one white and one yellow, he said, showing me the silver one, which was two francs, 'This is for you; and this other,' he added, holding up the yellow one, which was worth ten francs—my ten francs! 'look at it well; that is to be my fetich. I must have a run of luck to-night, do you hear me? You are to give that to the first beggar you meet after you leave the house. Don't fail, or you will bring me ill-luck.' I still hear those words across the intervening years, though they were half incomprehensible to me then. I took the two coins in my hand, which was covered with a thick knitted mitten, and I promised my cousin to do his commission faithfully. He then turned me over to my nurse Miette, who was waiting at the foot of the great staircase, with a brown hood on her head, goloshes on her feet, and a lantern in her hand."
"That's truly characteristic of a gambler," I interrupted; "it is like Italy, where on Saturdays they put a small boy, dressed in white for the occasion, to draw the numbers of the lottery."
"A good deal of snow had fallen the night before," continued Claude, paying no attention to my remark, "so that in order not to slip we had
