At the Sign of the Cat and Racket
stated on a sheet of foolscap, proving to the head of the house that
there was so much to the good in hard cash, so much in goods, so much
in bills and notes; that he did not owe a sou; that a hundred or two
hundred thousand francs were owing to him; that the capital had been
increased; that the farmlands, the houses, or the investments were
extended, or repaired, or doubled. Whence it became necessary to begin
again with increased ardor, to accumulate more crown-pieces, without its
ever entering the brain of these laborious ants to ask--“To what end?”
Favored by this annual turmoil, the happy Augustine escaped the
investigations of her Argus-eyed relations. At last, one Saturday
evening, the stock-taking was finished. The figures of the sum-total
showed a row of 0’s long enough to allow Guillaume for once to relax the
stern rule as to dessert which reigned throughout the year. The shrewd
old draper rubbed his hands, and allowed his assistants to remain at
table. The members of the crew had hardly swallowed their thimbleful
of some home-made liqueur, when the rumble of a carriage was heard. The
family party were going to see _Cendrillon_ at the Varietes, while
the two younger apprentices each received a crown of six francs, with
permission to go wherever they chose, provided they were in by midnight.
Notwithstanding this debauch, the old cloth-merchant was shaving himself
at six next morning, put on his maroon-colored coat, of which the
glowing lights afforded him perennial enjoyment, fastened a pair of gold
buckles on the knee-straps of his ample satin breeches; and then, at
about seven o’clock, while all were still sleeping in the house, he
made his way to the little office adjoining the shop on the first floor.
Daylight came in through a window, fortified by iron bars, and looking
out on a small yard surrounded by such black walls that it was very like
a well. The old merchant opened the iron-lined shutters, which were so
familiar to him, and threw up the lower half of the sash window. The icy
air of the courtyard came in to cool the hot atmosphere of the little
room, full of the odor peculiar to offices.
The merchant remained standing, his hand resting on the greasy arm of
a large cane chair lined with morocco, of which the original hue had
disappeared; he seemed to hesitate as to seating himself. He looked with
affection at the double desk, where his wife’s seat, opposite his own,
was fitted into a little niche in the wall. He contemplated the
numbered boxes, the files, the implements, the cash box--objects all
of immemorial origin, and fancied himself in the room with the shade of
Master Chevrel. He even pulled out the high stool on which he had once
sat in the presence of his departed master. This stool, covered with
black leather, the horse-hair showing at every corner--as it had long
done, without, however, coming out--he placed with a shaking hand on the
very spot where his predecessor had put it, and then, with an emotion
difficult to describe, he pulled a bell, which rang at the head of
Joseph Lebas’ bed. When this decisive blow had been struck, the old man,
for whom, no doubt, these reminiscences were too much, took up three or
four bills of exchange, and looked at them without seeing them.
Suddenly Joseph Lebas stood before him.
“Sit down there,” said Guillaume, pointing to the stool.
As the old master draper had never yet bid his assistant be seated in
his presence, Joseph Lebas was startled.
“What do you think of these notes?” asked Guillaume.
“They will never be paid.”
“Why?”
“Well, I heard the day before yesterday Etienne and Co. had made their
payments in gold.”
“Oh, oh!” said the draper. “Well, one must be very ill to show one’s
bile. Let us speak of something else.--Joseph, the stock-taking is
done.”
“Yes, monsieur, and the dividend is one of the best you have ever made.”
“Do not use new-fangled words. Say the profits, Joseph. Do you know, my
boy, that this result is partly owing to you? And I do not intend to pay
you a salary any longer. Madame Guillaume has suggested to me to take
you into partnership.--‘Guillaume and Lebas;’ will not that make a
good business name? We might add, ‘and Co.’ to round off the firm’s
signature.”
Tears rose to the eyes of Joseph Lebas, who tried to hide them.
“Oh, Monsieur Guillaume, how have I deserved such kindness? I only do my
duty. It was so much already that you should take an interest in a poor
orph----”
He was brushing the cuff of his left sleeve with his right hand, and
dared not look at the old man, who smiled as he thought that this modest
young fellow no doubt needed, as he had needed once on a time, some
encouragement to complete his explanation.
“To be sure,” said Virginie’s father, “you do not altogether deserve
this favor, Joseph. You have not so much confidence in me as I have in
you.” (The young man looked up quickly.) “You know all the secrets
of the cash-box. For the last two years I have told you almost all
my concerns. I have sent you to travel in our goods. In short, I have
nothing on my conscience as regards you. But you--you have a soft place,
and you have never breathed a word of it.” Joseph Lebas blushed. “Ah,
ha!” cried Guillaume, “so you thought you could deceive an old fox like
me? When you knew that I had scented the Lecocq bankruptcy?”
“What, monsieur?” replied Joseph Lebas, looking at his master as keenly
as his master looked at him, “you knew that I was in love?”
“I know everything, you rascal,” said the worthy and cunning old
merchant, pulling the assistant’s ear. “And I forgive you--I did the
same myself.”
“And you will give her to me?”
“Yes--with fifty thousand crowns; and I will leave you as much by will,
and we will start on our new career under the name of a new firm. We
will do good business yet, my boy!” added the old man, getting up and
flourishing his arms. “I tell you, son-in-law, there is nothing like
trade. Those who ask what pleasure is to be found in it are simpletons.
To be on the scent of a good bargain, to hold your own on ‘Change, to
watch as anxiously as at the gaming-table whether Etienne and Co. will
fail or no, to see a regiment of Guards march past all dressed in your
cloth, to trip your neighbor up--honestly of course!--to make the goods
cheaper than others can; then to carry out an undertaking which you
have planned, which begins, grows, totters, and succeeds! to know the
workings of every house of business as well as a minister of police, so
as never to make a mistake; to hold up your head in the midst of wrecks,
to have friends by correspondence in every manufacturing town; is not
that a perpetual game, Joseph? That is life, that is! I shall die in
that harness, like old Chevrel, but taking it easy now, all the same.”
In the heat of his eager rhetoric, old Guillaume had scarcely looked
at his assistant, who was weeping copiously. “Why, Joseph, my poor boy,
what is the matter?”
“Oh, I love her so! Monsieur Guillaume, that my heart fails me; I
believe----”
“Well, well, boy,” said the old man, touched, “you are happier than you
know, by God! For she loves you. I know it.”
And he blinked his little green eyes as he looked at the young man.
“Mademoiselle Augustine! Mademoiselle Augustine!” exclaimed Joseph Lebas
in his rapture.
He was about to rush out of the room when he felt himself clutched by a
hand of iron, and his astonished master spun him round in front of him
once more.
“What has Augustine to do with this matter?” he asked, in a voice which
instantly froze the luckless Joseph.
“Is it not she that--that--I love?” stammered the assistant.
Much put out by his own want of perspicacity, Guillaume sat down
again, and rested his long head in his hands to consider the perplexing
situation in which he found himself. Joseph Lebas, shamefaced and in
despair, remained standing.
“Joseph,” the draper said with frigid dignity, “I was speaking of
Virginie. Love cannot be made to order, I know. I know, too, that you
can be trusted. We will forget all this. I will not let Augustine marry
before Virginie.--Your interest will be ten per cent.”
The young man, to whom love gave I know not what power of courage and
eloquence, clasped his hand, and spoke in his turn--spoke for a quarter
of an hour, with so much warmth and feeling, that he altered the
situation. If the question had been a matter of business the old
tradesman would have had fixed principles to guide his decision; but,
tossed a thousand miles from commerce, on the ocean of sentiment,
without a compass, he floated, as he told himself, undecided in the face
of such an unexpected event. Carried away by his fatherly kindness, he
began to beat about the bush.
“Deuce take it, Joseph, you must know that there are ten years between
my two children. Mademoiselle Chevrel was no beauty, still she has had
nothing to complain of in me. Do as I did. Come, come, don’t cry. Can
you be so silly? What is to be done? It can be managed perhaps. There
is always some way out of a scrape. And we men are not always devoted
Celadons to our wives--you understand? Madame Guillaume is very pious.
... Come. By Gad, boy, give your arm to Augustine this morning as we go
to Mass.”
These were the phrases spoken at random by the old draper, and their
conclusion made the lover happy. He was already thinking of a friend of
his as a match for Mademoiselle Virginie, as he went out of the smoky
office, pressing his future father-in-law’s hand, after saying with a
knowing look that all would turn out for the best.
“What will Madame Guillaume say to it?” was the idea that greatly
troubled the worthy merchant when he found himself alone.
At breakfast Madame Guillaume and Virginie, to whom the draper had not
yet confided his disappointment, cast meaning glances at Joseph Lebas,
who was extremely embarrassed. The young assistant’s bashfulness
commended him to his mother-in-law’s good graces. The matron became
so cheerful that she smiled as she looked at her husband, and allowed
herself some little pleasantries of time-honored acceptance in such
simple families. She wondered whether Joseph or Virginie were the
taller, to ask them to compare their height. This preliminary fooling
brought a cloud to the master’s brow, and he even made such a point of
decorum that he desired Augustine to take the assistant’s arm on their
way to Saint-Leu. Madame Guillaume, surprised at this manly delicacy,
honored her husband with a nod of approval. So the procession left
the house in such order as to suggest no suspicious meaning to the
neighbors.
“Does it not seem to you, Mademoiselle Augustine,” said the assistant,
and he trembled, “that the wife of a merchant whose credit is as good
as Monsieur Guillaume’s, for instance, might enjoy herself a little more
than Madame your mother does? Might wear diamonds--or keep a carriage?
For my part, if I were to marry, I should be glad to take all the work,
and see my wife happy. I would not put her into the counting-house.
In the drapery business, you see, a woman is not so necessary now as
formerly. Monsieur Guillaume was quite right to act as he did--and
besides, his wife liked it. But so long as a woman knows how to turn her
hand to the book-keeping, the correspondence, the retail business, the
orders, and her housekeeping, so as not to sit idle, that is enough. At
seven o’clock, when the shop is shut, I shall take my pleasures, go to
the play, and into company.--But you are not listening to me.”
“Yes, indeed, Monsieur Joseph. What do you think of painting? That is a
fine calling.”
“Yes. I know a master house-painter, Monsieur Lourdois. He is
well-to-do.”
Thus conversing, the family reached the Church of Saint-Leu. There