ge-life, he declared he would not return
there, and he never did return. When his father asked him timidly what
he proposed doing, he shrugged his shoulders as his sole reply. What did
he do? Nothing. He idled about Paris.

"To dress in the height of fashion; to walk up and down before the most
renowned restaurants, with a toothpick in his mouth; to hire a carriage,
and drive it himself, having a hired groom in livery by his side,--this
was the delight of those days. At night he gambled; and, when he lost,
there was the till in his father's shop.

"His parents had rented for him, and comfortably furnished, a nice set
of rooms in their house, and tried by all manner of servility to keep
him at home, neglecting even their own business in order to be always
ready for his orders. But this did not prevent him from being constantly
away. He said he could not possibly receive his friends in a house where
his name was to be seen on the signboard of such a low establishment.

"It was his despair to be the son of a restaurant-keeper, and to be
called Chevassat.

"But greater grief was to come to him after two years' idle and
expensive life such as has been described.

"One fine morning when he needed a couple of hundred dollars, his
parents told him, with tears in their eyes, that they had not twenty
dollars in the house; that they were at the end of their resources; that
the day before a note of theirs had been protested; and that they were
at that moment on the brink of bankruptcy. They did not reproach Justin
with having spent all their savings; oh, no! On the contrary, they
humbly asked his pardon, if they were no longer able to provide for his
wants. And, with fear and trembling, they at last ventured to suggest,
that perhaps it would be well if he should seek some kind of work.

"He told them coolly that he would think it over, but that he must have
his two hundred dollars. And he got them. His father and mother had
still a watch and some jewelry; they pawned everything and brought him
the proceeds.

"Still he saw that the till he had considered inexhaustible was really
empty, and that henceforth his pockets also would be empty, unless he
could devise some means to fill them. He went, therefore, in search of
some employment; and his godfather, the valet, found one for him at the
house of a banker, who was in want of a reliable young man to be trained
for his business, and hereafter to be intrusted with the management