“Thus he reached his seventeenth year.  His course was not completed; but, as he was tired of college-life, he declared he would not return there, and he never did return.  When his father asked him timidly what he proposed doing, he shrugged his shoulders as his sole reply.  What did he do?  Nothing.  He idled about Paris.

“To dress in the height of fashion; to walk up and down before the most renowned restaurants, with a toothpick in his mouth; to hire a carriage, and drive it himself, having a hired groom in livery by his side,—­this was the delight of those days.  At night he gambled; and, when he lost, there was the till in his father’s shop.

“His parents had rented for him, and comfortably furnished, a nice set of rooms in their house, and tried by all manner of servility to keep him at home, neglecting even their own business in order to be always ready for his orders.  But this did not prevent him from being constantly away.  He said he could not possibly receive his friends in a house where his name was to be seen on the signboard of such a low establishment.

“It was his despair to be the son of a restaurant-keeper, and to be called Chevassat.

“But greater grief was to come to him after two years’ idle and expensive life such as has been described.

“One fine morning when he needed a couple of hundred dollars, his parents told him, with tears in their eyes, that they had not twenty dollars in the house; that they were at the end of their resources; that the day before a note of theirs had been protested; and that they were at that moment on the brink of bankruptcy.  They did not reproach Justin with having spent all their savings; oh, no!  On the contrary, they humbly asked his pardon, if they were no longer able to provide for his wants.  And, with fear and trembling, they at last ventured to suggest, that perhaps it would be well if he should seek some kind of work.

“He told them coolly that he would think it over, but that he must have his two hundred dollars.  And he got them.  His father and mother had still a watch and some jewelry; they pawned everything and brought him the proceeds.

“Still he saw that the till he had considered inexhaustible was really empty, and that henceforth his pockets also would be empty, unless he could devise some means to fill them.  He went, therefore, in search of some employment; and his godfather, the valet, found one for him at the house of a banker, who was in want of a reliable young man to be trained for his business, and hereafter to be intrusted with the management of his funds.”

Papa Ravinet’s voice changed so perceptibly as he uttered these last words, that Daniel and Henrietta, with one impulse, asked him,—­

“Is anything the matter, sir?”

He did not make any reply; but his sister, Mrs. Bertolle, said,—­

“No, there is nothing the matter with my brother;” and she looked at him with a nod of encouragement.