To escape from my embarrassment: 

“Sir,” I said, “I came also to ask for a piece of information.”

“I am at your service, sir.”

“Monsieur Flamaran has probably written to you on the matter?”

“Flamaran?”

“Yes, three days ago.”

“I have received no letter; have I, Jeanne?”

“No, father.”

“This is not the first time that my excellent colleague has promised to write a letter and has not written it.  Never mind, sir; your own introduction is sufficient.”

“Sir, I am about to take my doctor’s degree.”

“In arts?”

“No, in law; but I have a bachelor’s degree in arts.”

“You will follow it up with a degree in medicine, no doubt?”

“Really, sir—­”

“Why—­Why not, since you are collecting these things?  You have, then, a bent toward literature?”

“So I have been told.”

“A pronounced inclination—­hey? to scribble verse.”

“Ah, yes!”

“The old story; the family driving a lad into law; his heart leaning toward letters; the Digest open on the table, and the drawers stuffed with verses!  Isn’t that so?”

I bowed.  He glanced toward his daughter.

“Well, sir, I confess to you that I don’t understand—­don’t understand at all—­this behavior of yours.  Why not follow your natural bent?  You youngsters nowadays—­I mean no offence—­you youngsters have no longer any mind of your own.  Take my case; I was seventeen when I began to take an interest in numismatics.  My family destined me for the Stamp Office; yes, sir, the Stamp Office.  I had against me two grandfathers, two grandmothers, my father, my mother, and six uncles—­all furious.  I held out, and that has led me to the Institute.  Hey, Jeanne?”

Mademoiselle Jeanne had returned to the table, where she was standing when I entered, and seemed, after a moment, to busy herself in arranging the books scattered in disarray on the green cloth.  But she had a secret object—­to regain possession of the paper spiral that lay there neglected, its pin sticking up beside the lamp-stand.  Her light hand, hovering hither and thither, had by a series of cunning manoeuvres got the offending object behind a pile of duodecimos, and was now withdrawing it stealthily among the inkstands and paperweights.

M. Charnot interrupted this little stratagem.

She answered very prettily, with a slight toss of the head: 

“But, father, not everybody can be in the Institute.”

“Far from it, Jeanne.  This gentleman, for instance, devotes himself to one method of inking parchment that never will make him my colleague.  Doctor of Laws and Master of Arts,—­I presume, sir, you are going to be a notary?”

“Excuse me, an advocate.”

“I was sure of it.  Jeanne, my dear, in country families it is a standing dilemma; if not a notary, then an advocate; if not an advocate, then a notary.”