red
times harder than he would have done in other circumstances. His
business now must be not to argue for or against the widow and the
orphan, and pocket his fees for every case he gained, but to become a
really eminent legal authority, a luminary of the law. And he added in
conclusion:

"If I were rich wouldn't I dissect no end of bodies!"

Father Roland shrugged his shoulders.

"That is all very fine," he said. "But the wisest way of life is to
take it easy. We are not beasts of burden, but men. If you are born
poor you must work; well, so much the worse; and you do work. But
where you have dividends! You must be a flat if you grind yourself to
death."

Pierre replied haughtily:

"Our notions differ. For my part, I respect nothing on earth but
learning and intellect; everything else is beneath contempt."

Mme. Roland always tried to deaden the constant shocks between father
and son; she turned the conversation, and began talking of a murder
committed the week before at Bolbec Nointot. Their minds were
immediately full of the circumstances under which the crime had been
committed, and absorbed by the interesting horror, the attractive
mystery of crime, which, however commonplace, shameful, and
disgusting, exercises a strange and universal fascination over the
curiosity of mankind. Now and again, however, old Roland looked at his
watch. "Come," said he, "it is time to be going."

Pierre sneered.

"It is not yet one o'clock," he said. "It really was hardly worth
while to condemn me to eat a cold cutlet."

"Are you coming to the lawyer's?" his mother asked.

"I? No. What for?" he replied dryly. "My presence is quite
unnecessary."

Jean sat silent, as though he had no concern in the matter. When they
were discussing the murder at Bolbec he, as a legal authority, had put
forward some opinions and uttered some reflections on crime and
criminals. Now he spoke no more; but the sparkle in his eye, the
bright color in his cheeks, the very gloss of his beard seemed to
proclaim his happiness.

When the family had gone, Pierre, alone once more, resumed his
investigations in the apartments to let. After two or three hours
spent in going up and down stairs, he at last found, in the Boulevard
Francois, a pretty set of rooms; a spacious entresol with two doors on
two different streets, two drawing-rooms, a glass corridor, where his
patients while they waited, might walk among flowers, and a delightful
dining-room wit