tastrophe 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 extreme severity 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 s