A Start in Life [61]
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 speech and possessed a piercing eye and
a gloomy vivaciousness, terrified the unhappy Oscar.
"We work here day and night," said the lawyer, from the depths of his
armchair, and behind a table on which were papers, piled up like Alps.
"Monsieur Moreau, we won't kill him; but he'll have to go at our pace.
Monsieur Godeschal!" he called out.
Though the day was Sunday, the head-clerk appeared, pen in hand.
"Monsieur Godeschal, here's the pupil of whom I spoke to you. Monsieur
Moreau takes the liveliest interest in him. He will dine with us and
sleep in the small attic next to your chamber. You will allot the
exact time it takes to go to the law-school and back, so that he does
not lose five minutes on the way. You will see that he learns the Code
and is proficient in his classes; that is to say, after he has done
his work here, you will give him authors to read. In short, he is to
be under your immediate direction, and I shall keep an eye on it. They
want to make him what you have made yourself, a capable head-clerk,
against the time when he can take such a place himself. Go with
Monsieur Godeschal, my young friend; he'll show you your lodging, and
you can settle down in it. Did you notice Godeschal?" continued
Desroches, speaking to Moreau. "There's a fellow who, like me, has
nothing. His sister Mariette, the famous danseuse, is laying up her
money to buy him a practice in ten years. My clerks are young blades
who have nothing but their ten fingers to rely upon. So we all, my
five clerks and I, work as hard as a dozen ordinary fellows. But in
ten years I'll have the finest practice in Paris. In my office,
business and clients are a passion, and that's beginning to make
itself felt. I took Godeschal from Derville, where he was only just
made second clerk. He gets a thousand francs a year from me, and food
and lodging. But he's worth it; he is indefatigable. I love him, that
fellow! He has managed to live, as I did when a clerk, on six hundred
francs a year. What I care for above all is honesty, spotless
integrity; and when it is practised in such poverty as that, a man's a
man. For the slightest fault of that kind a clerk leaves my office."
"The lad is in a good school," thought Moreau.
For two whole years Oscar lived in the rue de Bethisy, a den of
pettifogging; for if ever that superannuated expression was applicable
to a lawyer's office, it was