or three times.

"Gaston," cried the old man, with a bitter oath; "do not call him that.
Do you think it likely that old Nicholas Gandelu would ever have been
ass enough to call his son Gaston? He was called Peter, after his
grandfather, but it wasn't a good enough one for the young fool; he
wanted a swell name, and Peter had too much the savor of hard work in
it for my fine gentleman. But that isn't all; I could let that pass,"
continued the old man. "Pray have you seen his cards? Over the name of
Gaston de Gandelu is a count's coronet. He a count indeed! the son of a
man who has carried a hod for years!"

"Young people will be young people," Andre ventured to observe; but the
old man's wrath would not be assuaged by a platitude like this.

"You can find no excuse for him, only the fellow is absolutely ashamed
of his father. He consorts with titled fools and is in the seventh
heaven if a waiter addresses him as 'Count,' not seeing that it is not
he that is treated with respect, but the gold pieces of his old father,
the working man."

Andre's position was now a most painful one, and he would have given a
good deal not to be the recipient of a confidence which was the result
of anger.

"He is only twenty, and yet see what a wreck he is," resumed Gandelu.
"His eyes are dim, and he is getting bald; he stoops, and spends his
nights in drink and bad company. I have, however, only myself to blame,
for I have been far too lenient; and if he had asked me for my head, I
believe that I should have given it to him. He had only to ask and have.
After my wife's death, I had only the boy. Do you know what he has in
this house? Why, rooms fit for a prince, two servants and four horses. I
allow him monthly, fifteen hundred francs, and he goes about calling
me a niggard, and has already squandered every bit of his poor mother's
fortune." He stopped, and turned pale, for at that moment the door
opened, and young Gaston, or rather Peter, slouched into the room.

"It is the common fate of fathers to be disappointed in their offspring,
and to see the sons who ought to have been their honor and glory the
scourge to punish their worldly aspirations," exclaimed the old man.

"Good! that is really a very telling speech," murmured Gaston
approvingly, "considering that you have not made a special study of
elocution."

Fortunately his father did not catch these words, and continued in a
voice broken by emotion, "That, M. Andre, is my son