and of training himself to take a place as head-clerk in two years.  He hoped to do his “stage” (the period between the admission as licentiate and the call to the bar) in Paris, in order to be fully prepared for the functions of a post which would surely not be refused to a rich young man.  To see himself, by the time he was thirty, “procureur du roi” in any court, no matter where, was his sole ambition.  Though Frederic Marest was cousin-german to Georges Marest, the latter not having told his surname in Pierrotin’s coucou, Oscar Husson did not connect the present Marest with the grandson of Czerni-Georges.

“Messieurs,” said Godeschal at breakfast time, addressing all the clerks, “I announce to you the arrival of a new jurisconsult; and as he is rich, rishissime, we will make him, I hope, pay a glorious entrance-fee.”

“Forward, the book!” cried Oscar, nodding to the youngest clerk, “and pray let us be serious.”

The youngest clerk climbed like a squirrel along the shelves which lined the room, until he could reach a register placed on the top shelf, where a thick layer of dust had settled on it.

“It is getting colored,” said the little clerk, exhibiting the volume.

We must explain the perennial joke of this book, then much in vogue in legal offices.  In a clerical life where work is the rule, amusement is all the more treasured because it is rare; but, above all, a hoax or a practical joke is enjoyed with delight.  This fancy or custom does, to a certain extent, explain Georges Marest’s behavior in the coucou.  The gravest and most gloomy clerk is possessed, at times, with a craving for fun and quizzing.  The instinct with which a set of young clerks will seize and develop a hoax or a practical joke is really marvellous.  The denizens of a studio and of a lawyer’s office are, in this line, superior to comedians.

In buying a practice without clients, Desroches began, as it were, a new dynasty.  This circumstance made a break in the usages relative to the reception of new-comers.  Moreover, Desroches having taken an office where legal documents had never yet been scribbled, had bought new tables, and white boxes edged with blue, also new.  His staff was made up of clerks coming from other officers, without mutual ties, and surprised, as one may say, to find themselves together.  Godeschal, who had served his apprenticeship under Maitre Derville, was not the sort of clerk to allow the precious tradition of the “welcome” to be lost.  This “welcome” is a breakfast which every neophyte must give to the “ancients” of the office into which he enters.