is schoolfellows, of 'picking up a rich wife.' Two or
three times the father had been ready to punish this determined idleness
after the rough method of Auvergne, but the mother was by to excuse and
to protect. In vain Astier-Rehu scolded and snapped his jaw, a prominent
feature which, in the days when he was a professor, had gained him the
nickname of _Crocodilus_. In the last resort, he would threaten to pack
his trunk and go back to his vineyard at Sauvagnat.

'Ah, Leonard, Leonard!' Madame Astier would say with gentle mockery;
and nothing further came of it. Once, however, he really came near to
strapping his trunk in good earnest, when, after a three years' course
of architecture at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paul refused to compete
for the Prix de Rome. The father could scarcely speak for indignation.
'Wretched boy! It is the Prix de Rome! You cannot know; you do not
understand. The Prix de Rome! Get that, and it means the Institute!'
Little the young man cared. What he wanted was wealth, and wealth
the Institute does not bestow, as might be seen in his father, his
grandfather, and old Rehu, his great-grandfather! To start in life, to
get a business, a large business, an immediate income--this was what he
wanted for his part, and not to wear a green coat with palms on it.

Leonard Astier was speechless. To hear such blasphemies uttered by his
son and approved by his wife, a daughter of the house of Rehu! This time
his trunk was really brought down from the box room; his old trunk, such
as professors use in the provinces, with as much ironwork in the way
of nails and hinges as might have sufficed for a church door, and high
enough and deep enough to have held the enormous manuscript of 'Marcus
Aurelius' together with all the dreams of glory and all the ambitious
hopes of an historian on the high road to the Academie. It was in vain
for Madame Astier to pinch her lips and say, 'Oh, Leonard, Leonard!'
Nothing would stop him till his trunk was packed. Two days it stood in
the way in the middle of his study. Then it travelled to the ante-room;
and there reposed, turned once and for ever into a wood-box.

And at first, it must be said, Paul Astier did splendidly. Helped by his
mother and her connection in good society, and further assisted by his
own cleverness and personal charm, he soon got work which brought him
into notice. The Duchess Padovani, wife of a former ambassador and
minister, trusted him with the restorat