rs, Mesdames
Chebe and Delobelle, advice and information which were an indispensable
aid to that ingenuous, timid, somewhat heavy youth, embarrassed by his
foreign accent and manner. After a brief period of neighborhood and
mutual services, the Risler brothers formed a part of both families.

On holidays places were always made for them at one table or the other,
and it was a great satisfaction to the two exiles to find in those poor
households, modest and straitened as they were, a taste of affection and
family life.

The wages of the designer, who was very clever at his trade, enabled
him to be of service to the Delobelles on rent-day, and to make his
appearance at the Chebes' in the guise of the rich uncle, always laden
with surprises and presents, so that the little girl, as soon as she saw
him, would explore his pockets and climb on his knees.

On Sunday he would take them all to the theatre; and almost every
evening he would go with Messieurs Chebe and Delobelle to a brewery on
the Rue Blondel, where he regaled them with beer and pretzels. Beer and
pretzels were his only vice.

For his own part, he knew no greater bliss than to sit before a foaming
tankard, between his two friends, listening to their talk, and taking
part only by a loud laugh or a shake of the head in their conversation,
which was usually a long succession of grievances against society.

A childlike shyness, and the Germanisms of speech which he never had
laid aside in his life of absorbing toil, embarrassed him much in giving
expression to his ideas. Moreover, his friends overawed him. They had
in respect to him the tremendous superiority of the man who does nothing
over the man who works; and M. Chebe, less generous than Delobelle, did
not hesitate to make him feel it. He was very lofty with him, was M.
Chebe! In his opinion, a man who worked, as Risler did, ten hours a day,
was incapable, when he left his work, of expressing an intelligent idea.
Sometimes the designer, coming home worried from the factory, would
prepare to spend the night over some pressing work. You should have seen
M. Chebe's scandalized expression then!

"Nobody could make me follow such a business!" he would say, expanding
his chest, and he would add, looking at Risler with the air of a
physician making a professional call, "Just wait till you've had one
severe attack."

Delobelle was not so fierce, but he adopted a still loftier tone. The
cedar does not see a rose