are many at every step. Live in your mother's home, in the garret; go
straight to the law-school; from there to your lawyer's office; drudge

night and day, and study at home. Become, by the time you are twenty-
two, a second clerk; by the time you are twenty-four, head-clerk; be

steady, and you will win all. If, moreover, you shouldn't like the
profession, you might enter the office of my son the notary, and

eventually succeed him. Therefore, work, patience, discretion,
honesty,--those are your landmarks."

"God grant that you may live thirty years longer to see your fifth
child realizing all we expect from him," cried Madame Clapart, seizing

uncle Cardot's hand and pressing it with a gesture that recalled her
youth.

"Now come to breakfast," replied the kind old man, leading Oscar by
the ear.

During the meal uncle Cardot observed his nephew without appearing to
do so, and soon saw that the lad knew nothing of life.

"Send him here to me now and then," he said to Madame Clapart, as he
bade her good-bye, "and I'll form him for you."

This visit calmed the anxieties of the poor mother, who had not hoped
for such brilliant success. For the next fortnight she took Oscar to

walk daily, and watched him tyrannically. This brought matters to the
end of October. One morning as the poor household was breakfasting on

a salad of herring and lettuce, with milk for a dessert, Oscar beheld
with terror the formidable ex-steward, who entered the room and

surprised this scene of poverty.
"We are now living in Paris--but not as we lived at Presles," said

Moreau, wishing to make known to Madame Clapart the change in their
relations caused by Oscar's folly. "I shall seldom be here myself; for

I have gone into partnership with Pere Leger and Pere Margueron of
Beaumont. We are speculating in land, and we have begun by purchasing

the estate of Persan. I am the head of the concern, which has a
capital of a million; part of which I have borrowed on my own

securities. When I find a good thing, Pere Leger and I examine it; my
partners have each a quarter and I a half in the profits; but I do

nearly all the work, and for that reason I shall be constantly on the
road. My wife lives here, in the faubourg du Roule, very plainly. When

we see how the business turns out, if we risk only the profits, and if
Oscar behaves himself, we may, perhaps, employ him."

"Ah! my friend, the catastrophe caused by my poor boy's heedlessness
may prove to be the cause of your making a brilliant fortune; for,

really and truly, you were burying your energy and your capacity at
Presles."

Madame Clapart then went on to relate her visit to uncle Cardot, in
order to show Moreau that neither she nor her son need any longer be a

burden on him.
"He is right, that old fellow," said the ex-steward. "We must hold

Oscar in that path with an iron hand, and he will end as a barrister
or a notary. But he mustn't leave the track; he must go straight

through with it. Ha! I know how to help you. The legal business of
land-agents is quite important, and I have heard of a lawyer who has

just bought what is called a "titre nu"; that means a practice without
clients. He is a young man, hard as an iron bar, eager for work,

ferociously active. His name is Desroches. I'll offer him our business
on condition that he takes Oscar as a pupil; and I'll ask him to let

the boy live with him at nine hundred francs a year, of which I will
pay three, so that your son will cost you only six hundred francs,

without his living, in future. If the boy ever means to become a man
it can only be under a discipline like that. He'll come out of that

office, notary, solicitor, or barrister, as he may elect."
"Come, Oscar; thank our kind Monsieur Moreau, and don't stand there

like a stone post. All young men who commit follies have not the good
fortune to meet with friends who still take an interest in their

career, even after they have been injured by them."
"The best way to make your peace with me," said Moreau, pressing

Oscar's hand, "is to work now with steady application, and to conduct
yourself in future properly."

CHAPTER VIII
TRICKS AND FARCES OF THE EMBRYO LONG ROBE

Ten days later, Oscar was taken by Monsieur Moreau to Maitre
Desroches, solicitor, recently established in the rue de Bethisy, in a

vast apartment at the end of a narrow court-yard, for which he was
paying a relatively low price.

Desroches, a young man twenty-six years of age, born of poor parents,
and brought up with extremeseverity by a stern father, had himself

known the condition in which Oscar now was. Accordingly, he felt an
interest in him, but the sort of interest which alone he could take,

checked by the apparent harshness that characterized him. The aspect
of this gaunt young man, with a muddy skin and hair cropped like a

clothes-brush, who was curt of speech and possessed a piercing eye and
a gloomy vivaciousness, terrified the unhappy Oscar.

"We work here day and night," said the lawyer, from the depths of his
armchair, and behind a table on which were papers, piled up like Alps.

"Monsieur Moreau, we won't kill him; but he'll have to go at our pace.
Monsieur Godeschal!" he called out.

Though the day was Sunday, the head-clerk appeared, pen in hand.
"Monsieur Godeschal, here's the pupil of whom I spoke to you. Monsieur

Moreau takes the liveliest interest in him. He will dine with us and
sleep in the small attic next to your chamber. You will allot the

exact time it takes to go to the law-school and back, so that he does
not lose five minutes on the way. You will see that he learns the Code

and is proficient in his classes; that is to say, after he has done
his work here, you will give him authors to read. In short, he is to

be under your immediate direction, and I shall keep an eye on it. They
want to make him what you have made yourself, a capable head-clerk,

against the time when he can take such a place himself. Go with
Monsieur Godeschal, my young friend; he'll show you your lodging, and

you can settle down in it. Did you notice Godeschal?" continued
Desroches, speaking to Moreau. "There's a fellow who, like me, has

nothing. His sister Mariette, the famous danseuse, is laying up her
money to buy him a practice in ten years. My clerks are young blades

who have nothing but their ten fingers to rely upon. So we all, my
five clerks and I, work as hard as a dozen ordinary fellows. But in

ten years I'll have the finest practice in Paris. In my office,
business and clients are a passion, and that's beginning to make

itself felt. I took Godeschal from Derville, where he was only just
made second clerk. He gets a thousand francs a year from me, and food

and lodging. But he's worth it; he is indefatigable. I love him, that
fellow! He has managed to live, as I did when a clerk, on six hundred

francs a year. What I care for above all is honesty, spotless
integrity; and when it is practised in such poverty as that, a man's a

man. For the slightest fault of that kind a clerk leaves my office."
"The lad is in a good school," thought Moreau.

For two whole years Oscar lived in the rue de Bethisy, a den of
pettifogging; for if ever that superannuated expression was applicable

to a lawyer's office, it was so in this case. Under this supervision,
both petty and able, he was kept to his regular hours and to his work

with such rigidity that his life in the midst of Paris was that of a
monk.

At five in the morning, in all weathers, Godeschal woke up. He went
down with Oscar to the office, where they always found their master up

and working. Oscar then did the errands of the office and prepared his
lessons for the law-school,--and prepared them elaborately; for

Godeschal, and frequently Desroches himself, pointed out to their
pupil authors to be looked through and difficulties to overcome. He

was not allowed to leave a single section of the Code until he had
thoroughly mastered it to the satisfaction of his chief and Godeschal,

who put him through preliminary examinations more searching and longer
than those of the law-school. On his return from his classes, where he