breakfasting with his uncle Cardot, and still less in going to see his

mother, who lived even more penuriously than Desroches. Moreau could
not make himself familiar with Oscar as Godeschal could; and perhaps

that sincere friend to young Husson was behind Godeschal in these
efforts to initiate the poor youth safely into the mysteries of life.

Oscar, grown prudent, had come, through contact with others, to see
the extent and the character of the fault he had committed on that

luckless journey; but the volume of his repressed fancies and the
follies of youth might still get the better of him. Nevertheless, the

more knowledge he could get of the world and its laws, the better his
mind would form itself, and, provided Godeschal never lost sight of

him, Moreau flattered himself that between them they could bring the
son of Madame Clapart through in safety.

"How is he getting on?" asked the land-agent of Godeschal on his
return from one of his journeys which had kept him some months out of

Paris.
"Always too much vanity," replied Godeschal. "You give him fine

clothes and fine linen, he wears the shirt-fronts of a stockbroker,
and so my dainty coxcomb spends his Sundays in the Tuileries, looking

out for adventures. What else can you expect? That's youth. He
torments me to present him to my sister, where he would see a pretty

sort of society!--actresses, ballet-dancers, elegant young fops,
spendthrifts who are wasting their fortunes! His mind, I'm afraid, is

not fitted for law. He can talk well, though; and if we could make him
a barrister he might plead cases that were carefully prepared for

him."
In the month of November, 1825, soon after Oscar Husson had taken

possession of his new clerkship, and at the moment when he was about
to pass his examination for the licentiate's degree, a new clerk

arrived to take the place made vacant by Oscar's promotion.
This fourth clerk, named Frederic Marest, intended to enter the

magistracy, and was now in his third year at the law school. He was a
fine young man of twenty-three, enriched to the amount of some twelve

thousand francs a year by the death of a bachelor uncle, and the son
of Madame Marest, widow of the wealthy wood-merchant. This future

magistrate, actuated by a laudable desire to understand his vocation
in its smallest details, had put himself in Desroches' office for the

purpose of studying legal procedure, and of training himself to take a
place as head-clerk in two years. He hoped to do his "stage" (the

period between the admission as licentiate and the call to the bar) in
Paris, in order to be fully prepared for the functions of a post which

would surely not be refused to a rich young man. To see himself, by
the time he was thirty, "procureur du roi" in any court, no matter

where, was his sole ambition. Though Frederic Marest was cousin-german
to Georges Marest, the latter not having told his surname in

Pierrotin's coucou, Oscar Husson did not connect the present Marest
with the grandson of Czerni-Georges.

"Messieurs," said Godeschal at breakfast time, addressing all the
clerks, "I announce to you the arrival of a new jurisconsult; and as

he is rich, rishissime, we will make him, I hope, pay a glorious
entrance-fee."

"Forward, the book!" cried Oscar, nodding to the youngest clerk, "and
pray let us be serious."

The youngest clerk climbed like a squirrel along the shelves which
lined the room, until he could reach a register placed on the top

shelf, where a thick layer of dust had settled on it.
"It is getting colored," said the little clerk, exhibiting the volume.

We must explain the perennial joke of this book, then much in vogue in
legal offices. In a clerical life where work is the rule, amusement is

all the more treasured because it is rare; but, above all, a hoax or a
practical joke is enjoyed with delight. This fancy or custom does, to

a certain extent, explain Georges Marest's behavior in the coucou. The
gravest and most gloomy clerk is possessed, at times, with a craving

for fun and quizzing. The instinct with which a set of young clerks
will seize and develop a hoax or a practical joke is really

marvellous. The denizens of a studio and of a lawyer's office are, in
this line, superior to comedians.

In buying a practice without clients, Desroches began, as it were, a
new dynasty. This circumstance made a break in the usages relative to

the reception of new-comers. Moreover, Desroches having taken an
office where legal documents had never yet been scribbled, had bought

new tables, and white boxes edged with blue, also new. His staff was
made up of clerks coming from other officers, without mutual ties, and

surprised, as one may say, to find themselves together. Godeschal, who
had served his apprenticeship under Maitre Derville, was not the sort

of clerk to allow the precious tradition of the "welcome" to be lost.
This "welcome" is a breakfast which every neophyte must give to the

"ancients" of the office into which he enters.
Now, about the time when Oscar came to the office, during the first

six months of Desroches' installation, on a winter evening when the
work had been got through more quickly than usual, and the clerks were

warming themselves before the fire preparatory to departure, it came
into Godeschal's head to construct and compose a Register

"architriclino-basochien," of the utmostantiquity, saved from the
fires of the Revolution, and derived through the procureur of the

Chatelet-Bordin, the immediate predecessor of Sauvaguest, the
attorney, from whom Desroches had bought his practice. The work, which

was highly approved by the other clerks, was begun by a search through
all the dealers in old paper for a register, made of paper with the

mark of the eighteenth century, duly bound in parchment, on which
should be the stamp of an order in council. Having found such a volume

it was left about in the dust, on the stove, on the ground, in the
kitchen, and even in what the clerks called the "chamber of

deliberations"; and thus it obtained a mouldiness to delight an
antiquary, cracks of aged dilapidation, and broken corners that looked

as though the rats had gnawed them; also, the gilt edges were
tarnished with surprisingperfection. As soon as the book was duly

prepared, the entries were made. The following extracts will show to
the most obtuse mind the purpose to which the office of Maitre

Desroches devoted this register, the first sixty pages of which were
filled with reports of fictitious cases. On the first page appeared as

follows, in the legal spelling of the eighteenth century:--
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, so be it. This

day, the feast of our lady Saincte-Geneviesve, patron saint of
Paris, under whose protection have existed, since the year 1525

the clerks of this Practice, we the under-signed, clerks and sub-
clerks of Maistre Jerosme-Sebastien Bordin, successor to the late

Guerbet, in his lifetime procureur at the Chastelet, do hereby
recognize the obligation under which we lie to renew and continue

the register and the archives of installation of the clerks of
this noble Practice, a glorious member of the Kingdom of Basoche,

the which register, being now full in consequence of the many acts
and deeds of our well-beloved predecessors, we have consigned to

the Keeper of the Archives of the Palais for safe-keeping, with
the registers of other ancient Practices; and we have ourselves

gone, each and all, to hear mass at the parish church of Saint-
Severin to solemnize the inauguration of this our new register.

In witnesswhereof we have hereunto signed our names: Malin, head-
clerk; Grevin, second-clerk; Athanase Feret, clerk; Jacques Heret,

clerk; Regnault de Saint-Jean-d'Angely, clerk; Bedeau, youngest
clerk and gutter-jumper.

In the year of our Lord 1787.
After the mass aforesaid was heard, we conveyed ourselves to

Courtille, where, at the common charge, we ordered a fine
breakfast; which did not end till seven o'clock the next morning.

This was marvellously well engrossed. An expert would have said that
it was written in the eighteenth century. Twenty-seven reports of

receptions of neophytes followed, the last in the fatal year of 1792.
Then came a blank of fourteen years; after which the register began

again, in 1806, with the appointment of Bordin as attorney before the
first Court of the Seine. And here follows the deed which proclaimed

the reconstitution of the kingdom of Basoche:--
God in his mercy willed that, in spite of the fearful storms which

have cruelly ravaged the land of France, now become a great
Empire, the archives of the very celebrated" target="_blank" title="a.著名的">celebrated Practice of Maitre

Bordin should be preserved; and we, the undersigned, clerks of the