"the rascal has a good deal to do to make
up for lost time; for the fourth rank in philosophy, well, _it isn't
Peru_, you know! You will stay and breakfast with me?" he added.

"We are at your orders," replied Madame Clapart. "Ah! my dear Monsieur
Cardot, what happiness it is for fathers and mothers when their children
make a good start in life! In this respect--indeed, in all others," she
added, catching herself up, "you are one of the most fortunate fathers
I have ever known. Under your virtuous son-in-law and your amiable
daughter, the Cocon d'Or continues to be the greatest establishment of
its kind in Paris. And here's your eldest son, for the last ten years
at the head of a fine practice and married to wealth. And you have such
charming little granddaughters! You are, as it were, the head of four
great families. Leave us, Oscar; go and look at the garden, but don't
touch the flowers."

"Why, he's eighteen years old!" said uncle Cardot, smiling at this
injunction, which made an infant of Oscar.

"Alas, yes, he is eighteen, my good Monsieur Cardot; and after bringing
him so far, sound and healthy in mind and body, neither bow-legged nor
crooked, after sacrificing everything to give him an education, it would
be hard if I could not see him on the road to fortune."

"That Monsieur Moreau who got him the scholarship will be sure to look
after his career," said uncle Cardot, concealing his hypocrisy under an
air of friendly good-humor.

"Monsieur Moreau may die," she said. "And besides, he has quarrelled
irrevocably with the Comte de Serizy, his patron."

"The deuce he has! Listen, madame; I see you are about to--"

"No, monsieur," said Oscar's mother, interrupting the old man, who,
out of courtesy to the "fair lady," repressed his annoyance at being
interrupted. "Alas, you do not know the miseries of a mother who, for
seven years past, has been forced to take a sum of six hundred francs a
year for her son's education from the miserable eighteen hundred francs
of her husband's salary. Yes, monsieur, that is all we have had to live
upon. Therefore, what more can I do for my poor Oscar? Monsieur Clapart
so hates the child that it is impossible for me to keep him in the
house. A poor woman, alone in the world, am I not right to come and
consult the only relation my Oscar has under heaven?"

"Yes, you are right," said uncle Cardot. "You never told me of all this
before."

"Ah, monsieur!" replied Madame Clapart, p