"It is enough to kill you to lead such a life!" cried old Cardot; "and

look at the broken glasses! What pillage! The antechamber actually
makes me shudder--"

At this instant the wrathful old gentleman stopped short as if
magnetized, like a bird which a snake is charming. He saw the outline

of a form in a black coat through the door of the boudoir.
"Ah, Mademoiselle Cabirolle!" he said at last.

"Well, what?" she asked.
The eyes of the danseuse followed those of the little old man; and

when she recognized the presence of the clerk she went off into such
fits of laughter that not only was the old gentleman nonplussed, but

Oscar was compelled to appear; for Florentine took him by the arm,
still pealing with laughter at the conscience-stricken faces of the

uncle and nephew.
"You here, nephew?"

"Nephew! so he's your nephew?" cried Florentine, with another burst of
laughter. "You never told me about him. Why didn't Mariette carry you

off?" she said to Oscar, who stood there petrified. "What can he do
now, poor boy?"

"Whatever he pleases!" said Cardot, sharply, marching to the door as
if to go away.

"One moment, papa Cardot. You will be so good as to get your nephew
out of a scrape into which I led him; for he played the money of his

master and lost it, and I lend him a thousand francs to win it back,
and he lost that too."

"Miserable boy! you lost fifteen hundred francs at play at your age?"
"Oh, uncle, uncle!" cried poor Oscar, plunged by these words into all

the horrors of his position, and falling on his knees before his
uncle, with clasped hands, "It is twelve o'clock! I am lost,

dishonored! Monsieur Desroches will have no pity! He gave me the money
for an important affair, in which his pride was concerned. I was to

get a paper at the Palais in the case of Vandernesse versus
Vandernesse! What will become of me? Oh, save me for the sake of my

father and aunt! Come with me to Monsieur Desroches, and explain it to
him; make some excuse,--anything!"

These sentences were jerked out through sobs and tears that might have
moved the sphinx of Luxor.

"Old skinflint!" said the danseuse, who was crying, "will you let your
own nephew be dishonored,--the son of the man to whom you owe your

fortune?--for his name is Oscar Husson. Save him, or Titine will deny
you forever!"

"But how did he come here?" asked Cardot.
"Don't you see that the reason he forgot to go for those papers was

because he was drunk and overslept himself. Georges and his cousin
Frederic took all the clerks in his office to a feast at the Rocher de

Cancale."
Pere Cardot looked at Florentine and hesitated.

"Come, come," she said, "you old monkey, shouldn't I have hid him
better if there had been anything else in it?"

"There, take your five hundred francs, you scamp!" said Cardot to his
nephew, "and remember, that's the last penny you'll ever get from me.

Go and make it up with your master if you can. I'll return the
thousand francs which you borrowed of mademoiselle; but I'll never

hear another word about you."
Oscar disappeared, not wishing to hear more. Once in the street,

however, he knew not where to go.
Chance which destroys men and chance which saves them were both making

equal efforts for and against Oscar during that fateful morning. But
he was doomed to fall before a master who forgave no failure in any

affair he had once undertaken. When Mariette reached home that night,
she felt alarmed at what might happen to the youth in whom her brother

took interest and she wrote a hasty note to Godeschal, telling him
what had happened to Oscar and inclosing a bank bill for five hundred

francs to repair his loss. The kind-hearted creature went to sleep
after charging her maid to carry the little note to Desroches' office

before seven o'clock in the morning. Godeschal, on his side, getting
up at six and finding that Oscar had not returned, guessed what had

happened. He took the five hundred francs from his own little hoard
and rushed to the Palais, where he obtained a copy of the judgment and

returned in time to lay it before Desroches by eight o'clock.
Meantime Desroches, who always rose at four, was in his office by

seven. Mariette's maid, not finding the brother of her mistress in his
bedroom, came down to the office and there met Desroches, to whom she

very naturally offered the note.
"Is it about business?" he said; "I am Monsieur Desroches."

"You can see, monsieur," replied the maid.
Desroches opened the letter and read it. Finding the five-hundred-

franc note, he went into his private office furiously angry with his
second clerk. About half-past seven he heard Godeschal dictating to

the second head-clerk a copy of the document in question, and a few
moments later the good fellow entered his master's office with an air

of triumph in his heart.
"Did Oscar Husson fetch the paper this morning from Simon?" inquired

Desroches.
"Yes, monsieur."

"Who gave him the money?"
"Why, you did, Saturday," replied Godeschal.

"Then it rains five-hundred-franc notes," cried Desroches. "Look here,
Godeschal, you are a fine fellow, but that little Husson does not

deserve such generosity. I hate idiots, but I hate still more the men
who will go wrong in spite of the fatherly care which watches over

them." He gave Godeschal Mariette's letter and the five-hundred-franc
note which she had sent. "You must excuse my having opened it," he

said, "but your sister's maid told me it was on business. Dismiss
Husson."

"Poor unhappy boy! what grief he has caused me! " said Godeschal,
"that tall ne'er-do-well of a Georges Marest is his evil genius; he

ought to flee him like the plague; if not, he'll bring him to some
third disgrace."

"What do you mean by that?" asked Desroches.
Godeschal then relatedbriefly the affair of the journey to Presles.

"Ah! yes," said the lawyer, "I remember Joseph Bridau told me that
story about the time it happened. It is to that meeting that we owe

the favor Monsieur de Serizy has since shown in the matter of Joseph's
brother, Philippe Bridau."

At this moment Moreau, to whom the case of the Vandernesse estate was
of much importance, entered the office. The marquis wished to sell the

land in parcels and the count was opposed to such a sale. The land-
agent received therefore the first fire of Desroches' wrath against

his ex-second clerk and all the threatening prophecies which he
fulminated against him. The result was that this most sincere friend

and protector of the unhappy youth came to the conclusion that his
vanity was incorrigible.

"Make him a barrister," said Desroches. "He has only his last
examination to pass. In that line, his defects might prove virtues,

for self-love and vanity give tongues to half the attorneys."
At this time Clapart, who was ill, was being nursed by his wife,--a

painful task, a duty without reward. The sick man tormented the poor
creature, who was now doomed to learn what venomous and spiteful

teasing a half-imbecile man, whom poverty had rendered craftily
savage, could be capable of in the weary tete-a-tete of each endless

day. Delighted to turn a sharpened arrow in the sensitive heart of the
mother, he had, in a measure, studied the fears that Oscar's behavior

and defects inspired in the poor woman. When a mother receives from