course!--to make the goods cheaper than others can; then to carry out
an undertaking which you have planned, which begins, grows, totters,
and succeeds! to know the workings of every house of business as well
as a minister of police, so as never to make a mistake; to hold up
your head in the midst of wrecks, to have friends by correspondence in
every manufacturing town; is not that a perpetual game, Joseph? That
is life, that is! I shall die in that harness, like old Chevrel, but
taking it easy now, all the same."

In the heat of his eager rhetoric, old Guillaume had scarcely looked
at his assistant, who was weeping copiously. "Why, Joseph, my poor
boy, what is the matter?"

"Oh, I love her so! Monsieur Guillaume, that my heart fails me; I
believe----"

"Well, well, boy," said the old man, touched, "you are happier than
you know, by God! For she loves you. I know it."

And he blinked his little green eyes as he looked at the young man.

"Mademoiselle Augustine! Mademoiselle Augustine!" exclaimed Joseph
Lebas in his rapture.

He was about to rush out of the room when he felt himself clutched by
a hand of iron, and his astonished master spun him round in front of
him once more.

"What has Augustine to do with this matter?" he asked, in a voice
which instantly froze the luckless Joseph.