y 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
d