self of a
pleasure was to deprive her. He asked for ten francs one day, then
ten francs another, and gradually resumed his old habits.

He was at this time about leaving school.

"The moment has come," said M. Favoral, "for him to select a career,
and support himself."

X

To think of a profession, Maxence Favoral had not waited for the
paternal warnings.

Modern schoolboys are precocious: they know the strong and the weak
side of life; and, when they take their degree, they already have
but few illusions left.

And how could it be otherwise? In the interior of the colleges is
fatally found the echo of the thoughts, and the reflex of the manners,
of the time. Neither walls nor keepers can avail. At the same time,
as the city mud that stains their boots, the scholars bring back on
their return from holidays their stock of observations and of facts.

And what have they seen during the day in their families, or among
their friends?

Ardent cravings, insatiable appetites for luxuries, comforts,
enjoyments, pleasures, contempt for patient labor, scorn for austere
convictions, eager longing for money, the will to become rich at any
cost, and the firm resolution to ravish fortune on the first
favorable occasion.

To be sure, they have dissembled in their presence; but their
perceptions are keen.

True, their father has told them in a grave tone, that there is
nothing respectable in this world except labor and honesty; but they
have caught that same father scarcely noticing a poor devil of an
honest man, and bowing to the earth before some clever rascal bearing
the stigma of three judgments, but worth six millions.

Conclusion? Oh! they know very well how to conclude; for there are
none such as young people to be logical, and to deduce the utmost
consequences of a fact.

They know, the most of them, that they will have to do something or
other; but what? And it is then, that, during the recreations,
their imagination strives to find that hitherto unknown profession
which is to give them fortune without work, and freedom at the same
time as a brilliant situation.

They discuss and criticise freely all the careers which are open to
youthful ambition. And how they laugh, if some simple fellow
ventures upon suggesting some of those modest situations where they
earn one hundred and fifty francs a month at the start! One hundred
and fifty francs!--why, it's hardly as much as many a boy spends
for his c