III

The head of the Guillaume family was a notable upholder of ancient

practices; he might be heard to regret the Provost of Merchants, and

never did he mention a decision of the Tribunal of Commerce without

calling it the /Sentence of the Consuls/. Up and dressed the first of

the household, in obedience, no doubt, to these old customs, he stood

sternly awaiting the appearance of his three assistants, ready to

scold them in case they were late. These young disciples of Mercury

knew nothing more terrible than the wordless assiduity with which the

master scrutinized their faces and their movements on Monday in search

of evidence or traces of their pranks. But at this moment the old

clothier paid no heed to his apprentices; he was absorbed in trying to

divine the motive of the anxious looks which the young man in silk

stockings and a cloak cast alternately at his signboard and into the

depths of his shop. The daylight was now brighter, and enabled the

stranger to discern the cashier's corner enclosed by a railing and

screened by old green silk curtains, where were kept the immense

ledgers, the silent oracles of the house. The too inquisitive gazer

seemed to covet this little nook, and to be taking the plan of a

dining-room at one side, lighted by a skylight, whence the family at

meals could easily see the smallest incident that might occur at the

shop-door. So much affection for his dwelling seemed suspicious to a

trader who had lived long enough to remember the law of maximum

prices; Monsieur Guillaume naturally thought that this sinister

personage had an eye to the till of the Cat and Racket. After quietly

observing the mute duel which was going on between his master and the

stranger, the eldest of the apprentices, having seen that the young

man was stealthily watching the windows of the third floor, ventured

to place himself on the stone flag where Monsieur Guillaume was

standing. He took two steps out into the street, raised his head, and

fancied that he caught sight of Mademoiselle Augustine Guillaume in

hasty retreat. The draper, annoyed by his assistant's perspicacity,

shot a side glance at him; but the draper and his amorous apprentice

were suddenly relieved from the fears which the young man's presence

had excited in their minds. He hailed a hackney cab on its way to a

neighboring stand, and jumped into it with an air of affected

indifference. This departure was a balm to the hearts of the other two

lads, who had been somewhat uneasy as to meeting the victim of their

practical joke.

"Well, gentlemen, what ails you that you are standing there with your

arms folded?" said Monsieur Guillaume to his three neophytes. "In

former days, bless you, when I was in Master Chevrel's service, I

should have overhauled more than two pieces of cloth by this time."

"Then it was daylight earlier," said the second assistant, whose duty

this was.

The old shopkeeper could not help smiling. Though two of these young

fellows, who were confided to his care by their fathers, rich

manufacturers at Louviers and at Sedan, had only to ask and to have a

hundred thousand francs the day when they were old enough to settle in

life, Guillaume regarded it as his duty to keep them under the rod of

an old-world despotism, unknown nowadays in the showy modern shops,

where the apprentices expect to be rich men at thirty. He made them

work like Negroes. These three assistants were equal to a business

which would harry ten such clerks as those whose sybaritical tastes

now swell the columns of the budget. Not a sound disturbed the peace

of this solemn house, where the hinges were always oiled, and where

the meanest article of furniture showed the respectable cleanliness

which reveals strict order and economy. The most waggish of the three

youths often amused himself by writing the date of its first

appearance on the Gruyere cheese which was left to their tender

mercies at breakfast, and which it was their pleasure to leave

untouched. This bit of mischief, and a few others of the same stamp,

would sometimes bring a smile on the face of the younger of

Guillaume's daughters, the pretty maiden who has just now appeared to

the bewitched man in the street.

Though each of these apprentices, even the eldest, paid a round sum

for his board, not one of them would have been bold enough to remain

at the master's table when dessert was served. When Madame Guillaume

talked of dressing the salad, the hapless youths trembled as they

thought of the thrift with which her prudent hand dispensed the oil.

They could never think of spending a night away from the house without

having given, long before, a plausible reason for such an

irregularity. Every Sunday, each in his turn, two of them accompanied

the Guillaume family to Mass at Saint-Leu, and to vespers.

Mesdemoiselles Virginie and Augustine, simply attired in cotton print,

each took the arm of an apprentice and walked in front, under the

piercing eye of their mother, who closed the little family procession

with her husband, accustomed by her to carry two large prayer-books,

bound in black morocco. The second apprentice received no salary. As

for the eldest, whose twelve years of perseverance and discretion had

initiated him into the secrets of the house, he was paid eight hundred

francs a year as the reward of his labors. On certain family festivals

he received as a gratuity some little gift, to which Madame

Guillaume's dry and wrinkled hand alone gave value--netted purses,

which she took care to stuff with cotton wool, to show off the fancy

stitches, braces of the strongest make, or heavy silk stockings.

Sometimes, but rarely, this prime minister was admitted to share the

pleasures of the family when they went into the country, or when,

after waiting for months, they made up their mind to exert the right

acquired by taking a box at the theatre to command a piece which Paris

had already forgotten.