The Launching of Roger Brook

Roger quite a lot of informa­tion about Maitre Leger's household. The lawyer himself was a shrewd man and a not unkindly master. His wife, as Roger no doubt knew, was much younger than himself, a pretty creature and a born coquette. Old Fusier knew his law but otherwise was a dotard and rarely interfered with anybody. Brochard, who aspired to a partner­ship, really ran the place. He was both clever and exacting. His only interest outside the firm was politics. He was a reformer of the most rabid type and if the present discontents ever came to a head would prove dangerous. Douie, the third apprentice, on the other hand, was deeply religious, and the Church still wielded immense power in Brittany. He, Quatrevaux, was not himself a Breton; he hailed from Provence. As Brochard was a freethinker he and Douie often had terrific arguments.

As the catalogue went on Roger gathered that these two were, apart from Maitre Leger, the only serious people in the house. The others either lived the lives of cabbages or were solely concerned with a succession of ever-changing love affairs.

'How is it that you have no tryst to-night?' Roger inquired, after he had listened to Quatrevaux's revelations about several of his colleagues' illicit amours, made with evident approval.

The handsome young Provencal gave him a sly look. 'You have not met Manon Prudhot yet, have you? She is a niece of Maitre Leger's, and keeps house for him in Madame's absence. She is a Parisien and infinitely superior to these little Rennes trollops with whom the others amuse themselves. Why should I go outside the house when such good fare is to be had within it?'

As the Cathedral clock struck the quarter they collected the six bottles of Vin Ordinaire, which to Roger's relief cost only half a franc a-piece, and carried them back to their lodging. A few minutes later the rest of the apprentices began to arrive, pewter mugs were pro­duced, the corks of the bottles were drawn and the small company settled down on their beds to toast Roger's initiation.

For some time the talk was general, with many allusions to the other inmates of the house and various girls of the town, which meant nothing to Roger; but then they began to ask him again about himself and he had to call largely upon his powers of invention.

From the crosstalk that ensued he soon discovered that they were just primitive and boorish rather than malicious, and that, apart from Quatrevaux, he already knew far more of the world than all of them put together. They had all been brought up in narrow parochial surroundings; none of them had ever been in a town larger than Rennes and his English public school education far surpassed anything they had received at the hands of Catholic priests in small town colleges.

By the time five out of six bottles had been consumed he knew that he had created something of an impression and that they now regarded him with a certain respect, even if their admiration was somewhat offset by a grudging envy; so he felt that if he played his cards well he might be able to secure a reasonable deal from them. With a view to further enhancing his prestige he launched into an account of his sword fight with De Roubec, although retailing the affair as though it had occurred in Strasbourg and had resulted from a chance encounter with a drunken rake on the way home one night.

At first they obviously believed him to be boasting and soon began to taunt him with half-drunken sneers of derision; but, quite good-humouredly, he pulled his long sword from under his bed, displayed it to their surprised gaze and said:

'Believe me or not as you like, but I am perfectly prepared to fight anyone here, either in a fencing school with buttoned foils or somewhere outside the town with naked steel.'

His half-playful announcement was followed by a brief, strained silence. He doubted if any of them had ever handled a sword in their lives, and felt certain that his challenge would not be accepted; but he waited with interest to see how they would take it.

After a moment the hulking Hutot spoke up for the rest:

'I am of the people and the rapier is not for such as us; but I am strong enough to break you in half, my little man, and you would remember a good kick from me for a month afterwards. While 'I am here you'll show me the respect and service due to your elders.'

Roger was quick to seize upon the point. He had known all along that he would never be able to intimidate Hutot, or overawe the others as long as they had the support of their senior; so he launched a project that he had in mind for splitting the party.

'Monsieur Hutot,' he said with sudden gravity, 'Believe me, you will never find me lacking in respect to you or unwilling to oblige you in anything you may require of me. But I am sure you will agree that, since I am not an articled apprentice, I am entitled to suggest that my age should be the governing factor in whom I serve here and whom I do not.'

' 'Tis an innovation that I'll not stand for,' declared Douie.

'You will hold your peace and do as you are bid,' said Quatrevaux sharply. 'How old are you, Breuc?'

'Seventeen and three months,' Roger lied, once more stretching his age to the maximum which he thought might pass as credible; yet, had he known it, he could safely have added another six months, since so impressed were they by his savoir-faire and comparative breadth of knowledge, they would still have believed him.

'We celebrated Douie's name-day towards the end of September,' Quatrevaux remarked, 'so he can be but seventeen and a few weeks. I am eighteen and a half, and Hutot nearly twenty.'

'Very well, then,' said Roger. 'I will serve you, Monsieur Quatrevaux, and Monsieur Hutot, to the best of my ability, but the other three must arrange matters among themselves.'

' 'Tis all against our custom,' demurred Hutot.

'And what of the cleaning of the office?' cried little Colas angrily. 'I've done it daily for eight months and thought my time was nearing its end. Yet now, the sixth bed here is occupied, Maitre Leger cannot take another apprentice until Hutot leaves, and that will not be till next Whitsuntide. 'Tis unjust that I should be saddled with it for sixteen months when the normal period is something less than a year.'

For a moment it looked as though Roger's plan for saving himself from becoming the general drudge hung again in the balance, but he said quickly:

'The office work I am prepared to share with you.' Then picking up the last bottle of wine he refilled the glasses of the two seniors and added: 'The decision rests with you, Monsieur Hutot, but in view of my age and the fact that I am not an articled apprentice I appeal to your sense of fairness.'

Quatrevaux suddenly came to his assistance. 'Breuc has made a good case. We are all lawyers here, and our rulings should be just ones.'

'I'll not start to run my own errands again,' Douie put in suddenly, and the silent, stupid-looking Monestot nodded agreement.

'Colas will continue to serve you two while Breuc looks after us,' said Quatrevaux. 'That is fair enough, is it not, Hutot?'

The burly Hutot shrugged his broad shoulders. 'As you will. So long as my needs are attended to without question I care not how the juniors arrange matters between themselves.'

So the question was settled and now, half befuddled by the wine they had drunk, they went to bed: Roger feeling no little pleased with himself that his skilful diplomacy had succeeded in at least reducing his new masters from five to two.

Next morning, having carried up the washing-water with Colas and helped him to dean out the office, Roger breakfasted with the others in the kitchen and, immediately afterwards, was set to work under Ruttot's supervision on copying Latin documents.

The senior copyist was a frail looking, bespectacled fellow of about thirty-five, who suffered from an habitual and irritating cough. He was a man of no ambition, having been a copyist for the past ten years and expecting to continue as one all his life. But he was competent at his work and evidently anxious that Roger should become so, too; as he took the trouble to make out a list for him of Latin legal expressions and helped him without grumbling whenever he found himself in difficulties.

As Roger bad feared, the work proved extremely monotonous and, as soon as its newness had worn off, he began to feel more than ever that Fate had played him a scurvy trick in forcing him to earn a pittance in such a manner.

He soon found, too, that although he had saved himself from becoming the slave of all his colleagues, fagging for Hutot alone was worse than anything he had endured as a new boy at Sherborne. The only interests of this coarse and powerfully built young Breton were drink and women. Brigitte, the fresh-faced cook, was his permanent