“Do you hear that, Oscar?” said Madame Clapart.  “Monsieur Godeschal is indulgent; see how well he knows how to combine the pleasures of youth and the duties of his calling.”

Madame Clapart, on the arrival of the tailor and the bootmaker with Oscar’s new clothes, remained alone with Godeschal, in order to return him the hundred francs he had just given her son.

“Ah, monsieur!” she said, “the blessings of a mother will follow you wherever you go, and in all your enterprises.”

Poor woman! she now had the supreme delight of seeing her son well-dressed, and she gave him a gold watch, the price of which she had saved by economy, as the reward of his good conduct.

“You draw for the conscription next week,” she said, “and to prepare, in case you get a bad number, I have been to see your uncle Cardot.  He is very much pleased with you; and so delighted to know you are a second clerk at twenty, and to hear of your successful examination at the law-school, that he promised me the money for a substitute.  Are not you glad to think that your own good conduct has brought such reward?  Though you have some privations to bear, remember the happiness of being able, five years from now, to buy a practice.  And think, too, my dear little kitten, how happy you make your mother.”

Oscar’s face, somewhat thinned by study, had acquired, through habits of business, a serious expression.  He had reached his full growth, his beard was thriving; adolescence had given place to virility.  The mother could not refrain from admiring her son and kissing him, as she said:—­

“Amuse yourself, my dear boy, but remember the advice of our good Monsieur Godeschal.  Ah! by the bye, I was nearly forgetting!  Here’s a present our friend Moreau sends you.  See! what a pretty pocket-book.”

“And I want it, too; for the master gave me five hundred francs to get that cursed judgment of Vandernesse versus Vandernesse, and I don’t want to leave that sum of money in my room.”

“But, surely, you are not going to carry it with you!” exclaimed his mother, in alarm.  “Suppose you should lose a sum like that!  Hadn’t you better give it to Monsieur Godeschal for safe keeping?”

“Godeschal!” cried Oscar, who thought his mother’s suggestion excellent.

But Godeschal, who, like all clerks, has his time to himself on Sundays, from ten to two o’clock, had already departed.

When his mother left him, Oscar went to lounge upon the boulevards until it was time to go to Georges Marest’s breakfast.  Why not display those beautiful clothes which he wore with a pride and joy which all young fellows who have been pinched for means in their youth will remember.  A pretty waistcoat with a blue ground and a palm-leaf pattern, a pair of black cashmere trousers pleated, a black coat very well fitting, and a cane with a gilt top, the cost of which he had saved himself, caused a natural joy to the poor lad, who thought of his manner of dress on the day of that journey to Presles, as the effect that Georges had then produced upon him came back to his mind.