"Saperlote, leave out the Madame, calf-lugs--, you!"

The apprentice did not move a finger. Obstinacy sat enthroned on him.
In a rage, the Master made a snatch at a metal flower-wreath to throw at
him. "Shan't! She's my aunt. I knows my duties to my aunt--me," said
the apprentice stolidly.

The Master burst out in a laugh of scorn. "Gaderabotin, here's family
pride for you! I'll go stick dandelines in my old sow's ear--respe d'la
compagnie."

The apprentice was still calm. "If you want to flourish yourself, don't
mind me," said he, and picking up the next account, he began reading:

Mademoiselle Landresse, in the matter of the Burial of
the Sieur de Mauprat, to Etienne Mahye, &c. Item--

The first words read by the apprentice had stilled the breaking storm of
the Master's anger. It dissolved in a fragrant dew of proud
reminiscence, profit, and scandal.

He himself had no open prejudices. He was an official of the public--or
so he counted himself--and he very shrewdly knew his duty in that walk of
life to which it had pleased Heaven to call him. The greater the
notoriety of the death, the more in evidence was the Master and all his
belongings. Death with honour was an advantage to him; death with
disaster a boon; death with scandal was a godsend. It brought tears of
gratitude to his eyes when the death and the scandal were in high places.
These were the only real tears he ever shed. His heart was in his head,