rizy 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 her child a shock like
that of the affair at Presles, she continues in a state of constant
fear, and, by the manner in which his wife boasted of Oscar every time
he obtained the slightest success, Clapart knew the extent of her secret
uneasiness, and he took pains to rouse it on every occasion.

"Well, Madame," Clapart would say, "Oscar is doing better than I even
hoped. That journey to Presles was only a heedlessness of youth. Where
can you find young lads who do not commit just such faults? Poor child!
he bears his privations heroically! If his father had lived, he would
never have had any. God grant he may know how to control his passions!"
etc., etc.

While all these catastrophes were happening in the rue de Vendome and
the rue de Bethisy, Clapart, sitting in the chimney corner, wrapped in
an old dressing-gown, watched his wife, who was engaged over the fire
in their bedroom in simultaneously making the family broth, Clapart's
"tisane," and her own breakfast.

"Mon Dieu! I wish I knew how the affair of yesterday ended. Oscar was
to breakfast at the Rocher de Cancale and spend the evening with a
marquise--"

"Don't trou