Georges and his cousin Frederic took all the clerks in his office to a feast at the Rocher de Cancale." Pere Cardot looked at Florentine and hesitated.
"Come, come," she said, "you old monkey, shouldn't I have hid him better if there had been anything else in it ?" "There, take your five hundred francs, you scamp!" said Cardot to his nephew, "and remember, that's the last penny you'll ever get from me.
Go and make it up with your master if you can.

I'll return the thousand francs which you borrowed of mademoiselle; but I'll never hear another word about you." Oscar disappeared, not wishing to hear more.

Once in the street, however, he knew not where to go.
Chance which destroys men and chance which saves them were both making equal efforts for and against Oscar during that fateful morning.

But he was doomed to fall before a master who forgave no failure in any affair he had once undertaken.

When Mariette reached home that night, she felt alarmed at what might happen to the youth in whom her brother took interest and she wrote a hasty note to Godeschal, telling him what had happened to Oscar and inclosing a bank bill for five hundred francs to repair his loss.