A man is not forbidden to amuse himself, but business first, my boy." "Do you hear that, Oscar ?" said Madame Clapart.

"Monsieur Godeschal is indulgent; see how well he knows how to combine the pleasures of youth and the duties of his calling." Madame Clapart, on the arrival of the tailor and the bootmaker with Oscar's new clothes, remained alone with Godeschal, in order to return him the hundred francs he had just given her son.
"Ah, monsieur!" she said, "the blessings of a mother will follow you wherever you go, and in all your enterprises." Poor woman! she now had the supreme delight of seeing her son well-dressed, and she gave him a gold watch, the price of which she had saved by economy, as the reward of his good conduct.
"You draw for the conscription next week," she said, "and to prepare, in case you get a bad number, I have been to see your uncle Cardot.

He is very much pleased with you; and so delighted to know you are a second clerk at twenty, and to hear of your successful examination at the law-school, that he promised me the money for a substitute.

Are not you glad to think that your own good conduct has brought such reward?
Though you have some privations to bear, remember the happiness of being able, five years from now, to buy a practice.

And think, too, my dear little kitten, how happy you make your mother." Oscar's face, somewhat thinned by study, had acquired, through habits of business, a serious expression.