A Start in Life [68]
"That looks ill," cried Godeschal, when Frederic had gone, "he hasn't
the cut of a novice, that fellow!"
"We'll get some fun out of him yet," said Oscar.
CHAPTER IX
LA MARQUISE DE LAS FLORENTINAS Y CABIROLOS
The following day, at two o'clock, a young man entered the office,
whom Oscar recognized as Georges Marest, now head-clerk of the notary
Hannequin.
"Ha! here's the friend of Ali pacha!" he exclaimed in a flippant way.
"Hey! you here, Monsieur l'ambassadeur!" returned Georges,
recollecting Oscar.
"So you know each other?" said Godeschal, addressing Georges.
"I should think so! We got into a scrape together," replied Georges,
"about two years ago. Yes, I had to leave Crottat and go to Hannequin
in consequence of that affair."
"What was it?" asked Godeschal.
"Oh, nothing!" replied Georges, at a sign from Oscar. "We tried to
hoax a peer of France, and he bowled us over. Ah ca! so you want to
jockey my cousin, do you?"
"We jockey no one," replied Oscar, with dignity; "there's our
charter."
And he presented the famous register, pointing to a place where
sentence of banishment was passed on a refractory who was stated to
have been forced, for acts of dishonesty, to leave the office in 1788.
Georges laughed as he looked through the archives.
"Well, well," he said, "my cousin and I are rich, and we'll give you a
fete such as you never had before,--something to stimulate your
imaginations for that register. To-morrow (Sunday) you are bidden to
the Rocher de Cancale at two o'clock. Afterwards, I'll take you to
spend the evening with Madame la Marquise de las Florentinas y
Cabirolos, where we shall play cards, and you'll see the elite of the
women of fashion. Therefore, gentleman of the lower courts," he added,
with notarial assumption, "you will have to behave yourselves, and
carry your wine like the seigneurs of the Regency."
"Hurrah!" cried the office like one man. "Bravo! very well! vivat!
Long live the Marests!"
"What's all this about?" asked Desroches, coming out from his private
office. "Ah! is that you, Georges? I know what you are after; you want
to demoralize my clerks."
So saying, he withdrew into his own room, calling Oscar after him.
"Here," he said, opening his cash-box, "are five hundred francs. Go to
the Palais, and get from the registrar a copy of the decision in
Vandernesse against Vandernesse; it must be served to-night if
possible. I have promised a PROD of twenty francs to Simon. Wait for
the copy if it is not ready. Above all, don't let yourself be fooled;
for Derville is capable, in the interest of his clients, to stick a
spoke in our wheel. Count Felix de Vandernesse is more powerful than
his brother, our client, the ambassador. Therefore keep your eyes
open, and if there's the slightest hitch come back to me at once."
Oscar departed with the full intention of distinguishing himself in
this little skirmish,--the first affair entrusted to him since his
installation as second clerk.
After the departure of Georges and Oscar, Godeschal sounded the new
clerk to discover the joke which, as he thought, lay behind this
Marquise de las Florentinas y Cabirolos. But Frederic, with the
coolness and gravity of a king's attorney, continued his cousin's
hoax, and by his way of answering, and his manner generally, he
succeeded in making the office believe that the marquise might really
be the widow of a Spanish grandee, to whom his cousin Georges was
paying his addresses. Born in Mexico, and the daughter of Creole
parents, this young and wealthy widow was noted for the easy manners
and habits of the women of those climates.
"She loves to laugh, she loves to sing, she loves to drink like me!"
he said in a low voice, quoting the well-known song of Beranger.
"Georges," he added, "is very rich; he has inherited from his father
(who was a widower)