r bread."

Oscar knew as yet nothing whatever of life. Like all children who have
been kept from a knowledge of the trials and poverty of the home, he
was ignorant of the necessity of earning his living. The word "commerce"
presented no idea whatever to his mind; "public employment" said almost
as little, for he saw no results of it. He listened, therefore, with
a submissive air, which he tried to make humble, to his mother's
exhortations, but they were lost in the void, and did not reach his
mind. Nevertheless, the word "army," the thought of being a soldier, and
the sight of his mother's tears did at last make him cry. No sooner
did Madame Clapart see the drops coursing down his cheeks than she felt
herself helpless, and, like most mothers in such cases, she began the
peroration which terminates these scenes,--scenes in which they suffer
their own anguish and that of their children also.

"Well, Oscar, _promise_ me that you will be more discreet in
future,--that you will not talk heedlessly any more, but will strive to
repress your silly vanity," et cetera, et cetera.

Oscar of course promised all his mother asked him to promise, and then,
after gently drawing him to her, Madame Clapart ended by kissing him to
console him for being scolded.

"In future," she said, "you will listen to your mother, and will follow
her advice; for a mother can give nothing but good counsel to her child.
We will go and see your uncle Cardot; that is our last hope. Cardot
owed a great deal to your father, who gave him his sister, Mademoiselle
Husson, with an enormous dowry for those days, which enabled him to make
a large fortune in the silk trade. I think he might, perhaps, place
you with Monsieur Camusot, his successor and son-in-law, in the rue des
Bourdonnais. But, you see, your uncle Cardot has four children. He
gave his establishment, the Cocon d'Or, to his eldest daughter, Madame
Camusot; and though Camusot has millions, he has also four children by
two wives; and, besides, he scarcely knows of our existence. Cardot has
married his second daughter, Mariane, to Monsieur Protez, of the firm
of Protez and Chiffreville. The practice of his eldest son, the notary,
cost him four hundred thousand francs; and he has just put his second
son, Joseph, into the drug business of Matifat. So you see, your uncle
Cardot has many reasons not to take an interest in you, whom he sees
only four times a year. He has never come to call upon me here, t