. I was writing
the last addresses."

And taking a heavy bundle of papers off the desk, Marechal showed them to
Savinien.

"Gracious! It seems that business is going on well here."

"Better and better."

"You are making mountains of flour."

"Yes; high as Mont Blanc; and then, we now have a fleet."

"What! a fleet?" cried Savinien, whose face expressed doubt and surprise
at the same time.

"Yes, a steam fleet. Last year Madame Desvarennes was not satisfied with
the state in which her corn came from the East. The corn was damaged
owing to defective stowage; the firm claimed compensation from the
steamship company. The claim was only moderately satisfied, Madame
Desvarennes got vexed, and now we import our own. We have branches at
Smyrna and Odessa."

"It is fabulous! If it goes on, my aunt will have an administration as
important as that of a European state. Oh! you are happy here, you
people; you are busy. I amuse myself! And if you knew how it wearies me!
I am withering, consuming myself, I am longing for business."

And saying these words, young Monsieur Desvarennes allowed a sorrowful
moan to escape him.

"It seems to me," said Marechal, "that it only depends upon yourself to
do as much and more business than any one?"

"You know well enough that it is not so," sighed Savinien; "my aunt is
opposed to it."

"What a mistake!" cried Marechal, quickly. "I have heard Madame
Desvarennes say more than twenty times how she regretted your being
unemployed. Come into the firm, you will have a good berth in the
counting-house."

"In the counting-house!" cried Savinien, bitterly; "there's the sore
point. Now look here; my friend, do you think that an organization like
mine is made to bend to the trivialities of a copying clerk's work? To
follow the humdrum of every-day routine? To blacken paper? To become a
servant?--me! with what I have in my brain?"

And, rising abruptly, Savinien began to walk hurriedly up and down the
room, disdainfully shaking his little head with its low forehead on which
were plastered a few fair curls (made with curling-irons), with the
indignant air of an Atlas carrying the world on his shoulders.

"Oh, I know very well what is at the bottom of the business--my aunt is
jealous of me because I am a man of ideas. She wishes to be the only one
of the family who possesses any. She thinks of binding me down to a
besotting work," continued he, "but I won't have it. I know what I want!
It