In "The Necklace" by Guy de Maupassant, as a profession, Monsieur Loisel worked as a clerk for the Ministry of Education. He is able to provide a comfortable, yet simple life for his wife, Mathilde Loisel. Towards the end of the story, he works additional jobs to pay off the necklace, "... Her husband worked in the evenings at putting straight a merchant's accounts, and often at night he did copying at two pence - half penny a page."