Men are born to get on." "You are right," said the hard and severe Desroches, who, in spite of his talents, had never himself got on in the position of assistant-head of a department.

"Happily I have only one son; otherwise, with my eighteen hundred francs a year, and a wife who makes barely twelve hundred out of her stamped-paper office, I don't know what would become of me.

I have just placed my boy as under-clerk to a lawyer; he gets twenty-five francs a month and his breakfast.

I give him as much more, and he dines and sleeps at home.

That's all he gets; he must manage for himself, but he'll make his way.