However, he continued
to keep one eye open for a little while longer and found the receipts
genuine, the entries correct, the columns admirably balanced. A month
later he contented himself with glancing at the receipts and running his
eye over the totals. Then one morning, without the slightest suspicion
of there being anything wrong, simply because he had lit a second pipe
and had nothing to do, he carelessly added up a row of figures and
fancied that he detected an error of thirteen francs. The balance seemed
perfectly correct, and yet he was not mistaken; the total outlay was
thirteen francs more than the various sums for which receipts were
furnished. It looked queer, but he said nothing to Burle, just making up
his mind to examine the next accounts closely. On the following week he
detected a fresh error of nineteen francs, and then, suddenly becoming
alarmed, he shut himself up with the books and spent a wretched morning
poring over them, perspiring, swearing and feeling as if his very skull
were bursting with the figures. At every page he discovered thefts of a
few francs--the most miserable petty thefts--ten, eight, eleven francs,
latterly, three and four; and, indeed, there was one column showing that
Burle had pilfered just one franc and a half.
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