How he will enjoy that fine house and the beautiful park." "Oh! yes," snarled Clapart, "you expect fine things of him; but, mark my words, there'll be squabbles wherever he goes." "Will you never cease to find fault with that poor child ?" said the mother.

"What has he done to you?
If some day we should live at our ease, we may owe it all to him; he has such a good heart--" "Our bones will be jelly long before that fellow makes his way in the world," cried Clapart.

"You don't know your own child; he is conceited, boastful, deceitful, lazy, incapable of--" "Why don't you go to meet Poiret ?" said the poor mother, struck to the heart by the diatribe she had brought upon herself.
"A boy who has never won a prize at school!" continued Clapart.
To bourgeois eyes, the obtaining of school prizes means the certainty of a fine future for the fortunate child.
"Did you win any ?" asked his wife.

"Oscar stood second in philosophy." This remark imposed silence for a moment on Clapart; but presently he began again.
"Besides, Madame Moreau hates him like poison, you know why.

She'll try to set her husband against him.