Ha! when a man starts from nothing to reach fortune, he has to keep down to bare necessities.

Look at Monsieur Desroches; he did what we are doing, and see where he is now." Godeschal preached by example.

If he professed the strictest principles of honor, discretion, and honesty, he practised them without assumption, as he walked, as he breathed; such action was the natural play of his soul, as walking and breathing were the natural play of his organs.
Eighteen months after Oscar's installation into the office, the second clerk was, for the second time, slightly wrong in his accounts, which were comparatively unimportant.

Godeschal said to him in presence of all the other clerks: "My dear Gaudet, go away from here of your own free will, that it may not be said that Monsieur Desroches has dismissed you.

You have been careless or absent-minded, and neither of those defects can pass here.
The master shall know nothing about the matter; that is all that I can do for a comrade." At twenty years of age, Oscar became third clerk in the office.