of holding his real talents cheap, he was so
indispensable to President du Ronceret, that, matrimonial schemes apart,
that functionary would have done all that he could, in an underhand way,
to prevent the vice-president from retiring in favor of his son. If the
learned old man left the bench, the President would be utterly unable to
do without him.

Goodman Blondet did not know that it was in Emile's power to fulfil all
his wishes in a few hours. The simplicity of his life was worthy of one
of Plutarch's men. In the evening he looked over his cases; next morning
he worked among his flowers; and all day long he gave decisions on the
bench. The pretty maid-servant, now of ripe age, and wrinkled like an
Easter pippin, looked after the house, and they lived according to
the established customs of the strictest parsimony. Mlle. Cadot always
carried the keys of her cupboards and fruit-loft about with her. She
was indefatigable. She went to market herself, she cooked and dusted
and swept, and never missed mass of a morning. To give some idea of the
domestic life of the household, it will be enough to remark that the
father and son never ate fruit till it was beginning to spoil, because
Mlle. Cadot always brought out anything that would not keep. No one in
the house ever tasted the luxury of new bread, and all the fast days in
the calendar were punctually observed. The gardener was put on rations
like a soldier; the elderly Valideh always kept an eye upon him. And
she, for her part, was so deferentially treated, that she took her meals
with the family, and in consequence was continually trotting to and fro
between the kitchen and the parlor at breakfast and dinner time.

Mlle. Blandureau's parents had consented to her marriage with Joseph
Blondet upon one condition--the penniless and briefless barrister must
be an assistant judge. So, with the desire of fitting his son to fill
the position, old M. Blondet racked his brains to hammer the law into
his son's head by dint of lessons, so as to make a cut-and-dried lawyer
of him. As for Blondet junior, he spent almost every evening at the
Blandureaus' house, to which also young Fabien du Ronceret had been
admitted since his return, without raising the slightest suspicion in
the minds of father or son.

Everything in this life of theirs was measured with an accuracy worthy
of Gerard Dow's Money Changer; not a grain of salt too much, not a
single profit foregone; but the economical