he
winked at his questioner with a knowing look. "Hey! hey! they are no
greater fools than I was," he added. "My father gave me three kicks; I
shall only give them one; he put one louis into my hand; I shall put
ten in theirs, therefore they'll be better off than I was. That's the
way to do. After I'm gone, what's left will be theirs. The notaries
can find them and give it to them. What nonsense to bother one's self
about children. Mine owe me their life. I've fed them, and I don't ask
anything from them,--I call that quits, hey, neighbor? I began as a
cartman, but that didn't prevent me marrying the daughter of that old
scoundrel Auffray."

Sylvie Rogron was sent (with six hundred francs for her board) as
apprentice to certain shopkeepers originally from Provins and now
settled in Paris in the rue Saint-Denis. Two years later she was "at
par," as they say; she earned her own living; at any rate her parents
paid nothing for her. That is what is called being "at par" in the rue
Saint-Denis. Sylvie had a salary of four hundred francs. At nineteen
years of age she was independent. At twenty, she was the second
demoiselle in the Maison Julliard, wholesale silk dealers at the
"Chinese Worm" rue Saint-Denis. The history of the sister was that of
the brother. Young Jerome-Denis Rogron entered the establishment of
one of the largest wholesale mercers in the same street, the Maison
Guepin, at the "Three Distaffs." When Sylvie Rogron, aged twenty-one,
had risen to be forewoman at a thousand francs a year Jerome-Denis,
with even better luck, was head-clerk at eighteen, with a salary of
twelve hundred francs.

Brother and sister met on Sundays and fete-days, which they passed
in economical amusements; they dined out of Paris, and went to
Saint-Cloud, Meudon, Belleville, or Vincennes. Towards the close of the
year 1815 they clubbed their savings, amounting to about twenty thousand
francs, earned by the sweat of their brows, and bought of Madame
Guenee the property and good-will of her celebrated shop, the "Family
Sister," one of the largest retail establishments in the quarter.
Sylvie kept the books and did the writing. Jerome-Denis was master and
head-clerk both. In 1821, after five years' experience, competition
became so fierce that it was all the brother and sister could do to
carry on the business and maintain its reputation.

Though Sylvie was at this time scarcely forty, her natural ugliness,
combined with hard work and