The Launching of Roger Brook

which would stave off starvation; so he answered tactfully: 'No, Monsieur, but it is an honourable profession, and no doubt interesting.'

The lawyer smiled drily. 'It gives one as good a status in France as one can have if not born of the noblesse. But whether so high-spirited a young man as yourself would find it interesting is quite another matter. How old are you?'

'Seventeen,' lied Roger, stretching his age as far as he thought he could do so with plausibility.

'You are a little old, then, to be bound as an apprentice; and 'tis the custom for parents whose boys are articled to me to pay a consider­ation for their learning the profession. So 'twould be resented by the others if I took you without a fee.'

On seeing Roger's face fall, Maitre Leger went on tactfully: 'How­ever, that might be overcome. I have formed the impression that you have a quick and intelligent mind, and if your Latin is as good as you say I may be able to offer you employment.' Sorting quickly through his papers he selected one and, passing it across his desk, added: 'See what you can make of this?'

For a moment Roger was sadly baffled by the legal terms with which the document was besprinkled, but he soon found he could understand enough of it to pronounce it to be a mortgage on some fields and a small vineyard, and to state the terms of interest and repayment.

'Since one can hardly expect you to be acquainted with our legal jargon, that is none too bad,' Maitre Leger declared, 'and most of the papers with which we are called on to deal are in Latin. I have recently lost my second Latin copyist, so I could offer you his place; but the remuneration would not be large.'

'What figure have you in mind?' asked Roger anxiously.

'Twelve louis a year.'

Again Roger's face fell. It was less than five shillings a week. He had always known that clerks were a down-trodden and ill-paid class, but had not imagined the remuneration of their most junior grade to be quite as miserable as this.

' 'Tis very kind of you,' he murmured unhappily, 'but I fear I could barely live on that.'

'You would not have to,' the lawyer replied. But perhaps I did not make my whole thought plain. We had been speaking of my apprentices and, while circumstances do not permit of your being articled to me, in view of your youth I was thinking of you in those terms. That is to say, you would bed and board with them here at my cost, and the louis a month would be yours to spend as you willed on small enjoyments or keeping some young woman in ribbons.'

This put a very different complexion on the matter. A louis a month was no fortune and, Roger felt, a sad decline in his earnings after the near half a louis a day that he had been making as his share in his recent partnership. It seemed all wrong that the rewards of honest work should be so infinitely less than those of merry charlatanism, but that was to be expected; and the present offer at least meant security from want throughout the winter with a prospect of having saved enough to return to England by the spring if no better approach to fortune had occurred in the meantime. In fact, as the lawyer was usually paid to take his apprentices and in this case was offering a wage, it seemed he was behaving very generously; and Roger, with his usual honesty when not forced by circumstances to conceal his motives, said so when accepting the proposition.

Maitre Leger smiled again. ' 'Tis true that I was in part prompted by the thought that no man works well and happily unless he has a few francs for his private necessities in his pocket, yet I believe that I have the reputation in Rennes of a shrewd man at a bargain. You will learn soon enough that my apprentices are an idle, slovenly lot, with scarce a peck of brains or learning between them; whereas you, Monsieur Breuc, are clearly a young man of superior education and if you choose to apply yourself with even moderate endeavour to the tasks which are set you will, I have no doubt, earn your twelve Louis a year and show me a good profit in addition.'

'I shall certainly do jury best to repay your kindness,' Roger replied with genuine sincerity. 'When do you wish me to start?'

'Why, the sooner the better, since you have only to fetch your things from the Du Guesclin. Come with me now and I will present you to your future colleagues; then you can collect your belongings and settle in this evening.'

As he stood up the lawyer paused a moment, staring down at his papers thoughtfully; then he said: 'My senior apprentices are older than yourself and are still working without a wage after three years here. You will be sharing their accommodation and be one of them in all but name. I am anxious to avoid any jealousy arising from the fact that you are being paid, so I think it would be wise to resort to a small deception. My wife is a native of Artois and has many relatives in the northern provinces. I propose to give out that you are a distant cousin of hers, as the relationship will appear an adequate reason for the special arrangement I have made in your case.'

'It is good of you to provide against my being subject to un­pleasantness,' said Roger. 'But to carry the matter through would it not be advisable for you to present me to Madme Leger before I meet any of your employees, in order that we may arrange some details of this consulship against anybody questioning me con­ cerning it?'

'I would do so, but Madame Leger accompanied me on my recent visit to Paris, and is not yet returned. I will inform her by letter of the arrangement, so that when she gets back she may greet you at once as her relative; but for the moment all you need tell anyone who questions you; is that your mother was a Colombat, since that was my wife's maiden name.' As he finished speaking, Maitre Leger led the way downstairs and proceeded to introduce Roger to his new colleagues.

The chief clerk was a bent old man named Fusier, but Brochard, his number two, a broad-shouldered, thick- set man of about forty, struck Roger as having much more personality. Three other clerks were employed, Guigner, Taillepied and Ruttot, the latter being the senior Latin copyist under whom Roger was to work. He thought all of them dreary, depressed-looking men, and was thoroughly glad that he had no intention of making the law his permanent profession.

The apprentices were introduced as Hutot, Quatrevaux, Douie, Monestot and Colas; that being the order of their seniority. Roger judged that the age he had given himself, of seventeen, made him younger than the two senior, about the same age as Douie and older than the two who had most recently joined the firm; but that in actual fact he was probably about of an age with the youngest.

Hutot was a big, fair-haired, stupid-looking lout; Quatrevaux a dark thin fellow of better dress and appearance than the others; Douie the youth with the violent red hair who had shown him up to Maitre Leger, Monestot a pimply-faced youngster who looked as if he had outgrown his strength; and Colas a bright-eyed, impish- looking lad.

Roger found that the whole of the ground floor appeared to be offices. The apprentices all worked in a room at the back, under the supervision of the thick-set second head, Brochard. The clerks occupied the front room, with the exception of the old chief clerk Fusier, who had an office to himself on the opposite side of the stairs, next to the waiting-room. It was decided that as Roger was to be employed copying documents it would be best for him to work in the clerks' room at a desk next to that of his senior, Ruttot.

When the introductions had been completed Roger was handed over to the junior apprentice, Colas, to be shown his living quarters. The mischievous-looking youngster took him upstairs to the top of the house where, beneath the roof, two attics had been converted into one room for the apprentices. Even so, the space seemed extraordinarily small; the six truckle beds were no more than a few inches apart and the low ceiling made the crowded chamber appallingly stuffy.

'That's yours,' said Colas, pointing to a bed in the far corner. 'And, by all the saints, I'm pleased to see you.'

'Thank you,' replied Roger giving him a slightly suspicious look, at this somewhat curious welcome.

Colas grinned. 'You don't know what you are in for yet. 'Tis you who are the junior apprentice now, and a dog's life you'll find it, till some other poor greenhorn is articled and takes your place.'

'But I have not been articled,' said Roger firmly, 'so I am not an apprentice.'

'To the devil with that!' Colas declared truculently. 'As you are to share our room you'll count as one. 'Twill be for you in future to get up an hour before the rest of us and fetch up the pails of water for our washing. You'll have to run errands for us, too; get us our tucker from Julien, the pastry-cook, and carry billet-doux from Hutot and Monestot to their mistresses. You'll empty the slops and make our beds in the midday