importance in the commercial world. I need say no more, you must choose for yourself; I shall want your answer tomorrow, in time to post; go and think it over. Don’t say anything to your sisters, or they’ll persuade you to go to Paris, for the chance of visiting you there.”
Such was my father’s address to me at the age of seventeen. It was a difficult question to decide—Oxford or Paris? Still I did decide, and next day announced that decision.
“I should prefer going to college, father, at all events.”
“Glad to hear it, my boy, though the other course would have been the cheaper for me; still I am glad to hear it. I can’t do much for you, but in sending you to college I can do more than I can in any other way. If there’s anything in you, it will come out there; if not, you will not be spoilt for other things afterwards, so God speed you, my boy.”
To college, therefore, I went, with only one more word of advice from my father. As I left the gate in the hired chaise for the station, he said:
“God bless you, my boy; if you mean to be anything, don’t hear midnight strike too often.”
Three years passed, and I was “getting on,” as my mother used to tell her friends; and in a few months more I had hopes of getting something worth having in the shape of my degeee with honours, and a fellowship. Alas! My hopes were vain. I had hardly returned to college at the end of my third long vacation when I received a telegram announcing my father’s illness, and reached home too late to see him again alive. My college dreams were over—I had not a penny in the world—I must work for all I was to have.
My uncle now wrote to repeat his former offer. I joyfully accepted it, and a month after my father’s death I was in Paris.
My uncle‘s house was in one of the small streets lying between the Rue Vivienne and the Rue Montmartre, just north of the Bourse. It was, as may be supposed from its situation, an old rambling place, with the banking offices on one side of the courtyard, and the residence on the other. The offices, the scene of my new duties, consisted of a suite of three rooms, communicating by swing doors; in the farthest sat my uncle, the next was the chief cashier’s or clerk’s, and the third the office proper. A counter stretched along the whole length of the room, and on top of the counter ran a high, strong, wire-guard, with two or three small circular openings, through which the money was passed and papers were taken. Behind this guard I was to sit as third cashier or clerk. My uncle’s business was that of a banker, bill discounter, and money-lender; and to judge by the rate at which he lived, he must for some years have employed a very large amount of capital, or have lent his money, at a little more than five per cent. interest.
My uncle having shown me the offices, took me over to the house.
“My daughter, Mr. Wardes,—Victorine, my dear, Mr. Wardes—a nephew of mine.”
I looked at my cousin once and again—she was worth looking at—a most singular mixture of races was visible in her face. She had a high, broad, thoughtful, German forehead—a man’s rather than a girl’s—a delicate chin and mouth, with the small teeth so characteristic of the more highly organised French nature, and a nose and eyes unmistakeably English in the clear bridged outline of the one, and the open, fearless gaze of the others. She was a curiosity—a new thing—and I determined to study Victorine, my cousin.
“You must dine with us, at six o’clock. Where did you sleep last night?”
“At the Bedford.”
“You’d better bring your trunks here; your room is ready.”
“Really, I had no idea that I was to live here.”
“Where else, boy? Where else? Paris is not a cheap place for young men; you’ll live here cheaper than anywhere else; more comfortably, perhaps, if you and Victorine don't quarrel.”
This was more than I had hoped for, to find myself domiciled in my uncle’s house. I thought he had done much in renewing his offer after my previous refusal, but this overcame me.
“I’m really very grateful to you for all your kindness.”
“All right, my lad, all right. See and get your things here, or you’ll be late for dinner.”
At dinner I was introduced to the chief clerk, or rather, the manager of my uncle’s business. Once or twice I noticed his eyes fix themselves on me in a way that gave me the idea of his measuring me. I felt annoyed at this; and I showed it a little, perhaps, in the tone of my voice as I answered his inquiries as to the practices of English commerce.
“Oh!” said my uncle, “he knows nothing about the matter, Monsieur Vernay. Ask him to recite to you a chorus from the ‘Antigone,’ and he’ll repeat half the book; but of commerce—of banking—he knows nothing.”
“We shall be able to teach him our system in a few years, if he shall stay so long with us.”
“He’ll stay longer than I shall, I dare say, M. Vernay.”
“Let me hope not, M. Wardes, you are a young man yet; quite a young man.”
“That may be, but I don’t mean to spend all my life in your dear Paris, M. Vernay. O no.”
“Whatever comes, we shall do our best with the young gentleman to make him useful.”
I felt angry and vexed at this conversation: though the hints thrown out by my uncle were plain enough, I did not like this contemptuous treatment from his manager.
Moreover, I noticed that M. Vernay paid most assiduous and graceful attentions to Victorine, who accepted them as a matter of course, and this made me still more inclined to dislike him.
My work was easy enough—too easy. I copied letters, paid away money, and did the work that belonged to my department as junior clerk. M. Vernay was careful to give me nothing to do that was not simplicity itself, and I was bored for want of something that might occupy my mind as well as my fingers. In the evenings I seldom went out, and was very content to spend my time with Victorine, who, on her part, seemed to think the
