LITMIR.BIZ

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thereupon explained his scheme of giving them a little bonus for each error they might detect in the debit notes; and when he went out the clerks, quite cured of all inclination for idle laughter, set to work in earnest, hunting for errors.

      On reaching the ground-floor, occupied by the shops, Mouret went straight to pay-desk No. 10, where Albert Lhomme was polishing his nails, pending the arrival of customers. People currently spoke of "the Lhomme dynasty," since Madame Aurélie, first-hand in the mantle department, after helping her husband to secure the post of chief cashier, had further managed to get a pay desk for her son, a tall, pale, vicious young man who had been unable to remain in any situation, and had caused her an immense deal of anxiety. On reaching his desk, Mouret, who never cared to render himself unpopular by performing police duty, and from policy and taste preferred to play the part of a benign Providence, retired into the back ground, after gently nudging Bourdoncle with his elbow. It was Bourdoncle, the infallible and impeccable, whom he generally charged with the duty of reprimanding.

      "Monsieur Albert," said Bourdoncle, severely, "you have again taken an address wrong; the parcel has come back. It is unbearable!"

      The cashier, thinking it advisable to defend himself, called as a witness the assistant who had tied up the packet. This assistant, named Joseph, also belonged to the Lhomme dynasty, for he was Albert's foster brother, and likewise owed his place to Madame Aurélie's influence. Albert sought to make him say that the mistake had been made by the customer herself, but all Joseph could do was to stutter and twist the shaggy beard that ornamented his scarred face, struggling the while between his conscience and his gratitude to his protectors.

      "Let Joseph alone," Bourdoncle exclaimed at last, "and don't say any more. It's a lucky thing for you that we are mindful of your mother's good services!"

      However, at this moment Lhomme senior came running up. From his office near the door he could see his son's pay-desk, which was in the glove department, and doubtless the colloquy had alarmed him. Quite white-haired already, deadened by his sedentary life, he had a flabby, colourless face, blanched and worn, as it were, by the reflection of the money he was continually handling. The circumstance that he had lost an arm did not at all incommode him in this work, and indeed people would go to his office out of curiosity to see him verify the receipts, so rapidly did the notes and coins slip through his left hand, the only one remaining to him. The son of a tax-collector at Chablis, he had come to Paris as clerk to a merchant of the Port-aux-Vins. Then, whilst lodging in the Rue Cuvier, he had married the daughter of his doorkeeper, a petty Alsatian tailor, and from that day onward he had bowed submissively before his wife, whose commercial ability filled him with respect. She now earned more than twelve thousand francs a year in the mantle department, whilst he only drew a fixed salary of five thousand francs. And the deference he felt for this wife who brought such large sums into the household was extended to their son, whom he also owed to her.

      "What's the matter?" he murmured; "is Albert in fault?"

      Then, according to his custom, Mouret reappeared on the scene, to play the part of an indulgent prince. When Bourdoncle had made himself feared, he looked after his own popularity.

      "Oh! nothing of consequence!" he answered. "My dear Lhomme, your son Albert is a careless fellow, who should take an example from you." Then, changing the subject, showing himself more amiable than ever, he continued: "And by the way, how about that concert the other day – did you get a good seat?"

      A blush spread over the white cheeks of the old cashier. Music was his only vice, a secret vice which he indulged in solitarily, frequenting theatres, concerts and recitals. Moreover, despite the loss of his arm, he played on the French horn, thanks to an ingenious system of claws; and as Madame Lhomme detested noise, before playing his instrument of an evening he would wrap it in cloth, and then draw from it all sorts of weird muffled sounds which delighted him to the point of ecstasy. In the forced irregularity of their domestic life he had made himself an oasis of his passion for music – that, his cash receipts and his admiration for his wife, summed up his whole existence.

      "A very good seat," he replied with sparkling eyes. "You are really too kind, sir."

      Mouret, who took a personal pleasure in satisfying other people's passions, sometimes gave Lhomme the tickets forced upon him by lady patronesses and he put the finishing touch to the old man's delight by remarking: "Ah, Beethoven! ah, Mozart! What music!" Then, without waiting for a reply, he went off, rejoining Bourdoncle, who had already started on his tour of inspection through the departments.

      In the central hall – an inner courtyard with a glass roof – was the silk department. At first Mouret and his companion turned into the Rue-Saint-Augustin gallery occupied by the linen department, from one end to the other. Nothing unusual striking them, they passed on slowly through the crowd of respectful assistants. Next they turned into the cotton and hosiery departments, where the same good order reigned. But in the department devoted to woollens, occupying the gallery which ran towards the Rue de la Michodière, Bourdoncle resumed the part of executioner, on observing a young man seated on the counter, looking quite knocked up by a sleepless night; and this young man, a certain Liénard, son of a rich Angers draper, bowed his head beneath the reprimand, for in the idle, careless life of pleasure which he led his one great fear was that he might be recalled from Paris by his father. And now reprimands began to shower down on all sides like hail, and quite a storm burst in the gallery of the Rue de la Michodière. In the drapery department a salesman, a fresh hand, who slept in the house, had come in after eleven o'clock and in the haberdashery department, the second counterman had allowed himself to be caught smoking a cigarette downstairs. But the tempest attained its greatest violence in the glove department, where it fell upon one of the few Parisians in the house, handsome Mignot, as he was called, the illegitimate son of a music-mistress. His crime was that of causing a scandal in the dining-room by complaining of the food. As there were three tables, one at half-past nine, one at half-past ten, and another at half-past eleven, he wished to explain that, belonging as he did to the third table, he always had the leavings, the worst of everything for his share.

      "What! the food not good?" asked Mouret, with a naive air, opening his mouth at last.

      He only allowed the chief cook, a terrible Auvergnat, a franc and a half a head per day, out of which small sum this man still contrived to make a good profit; and indeed the food was really execrable. But Bourdoncle shrugged his shoulders: a cook who had four hundred luncheons and four hundred dinners to serve, even in three series, had no time to waste on the refinements of his art.

      "Never mind," said the governor, good-naturedly, "I wish all our employees to have good and abundant food. I'll speak to the cook." And thus Mignot's complaint was shelved.

      Then returning to their point of departure, standing near the door, amidst the umbrellas and neckties, Mouret and Bourdoncle received the report of one of the four inspectors, who were charged with the police service of the establishment. The inspector in question, old Jouve, a retired captain, decorated for his bravery at Constantine and still a fine-looking man with his big sensual nose and majestic baldness, drew their attention to a salesman, who, in reply to a simple remonstrance on his part, had called him "an old humbug," and the salesman was immediately discharged.

      Meantime, the shop was still without customers, that is, except a few housewives of the neighbourhood who were passing through the almost deserted galleries. At the door the time-keeper had just closed his book, and was making out a separate list of the late arrivals. The salesmen on their side were taking possession of their departments, which had been swept and brushed by the assistants before their arrival. Each young man put away his hat and over-coat as he arrived, stifling a yawn, still half asleep as he did so. Some exchanged a few words, gazed about the shop and sought to pull themselves together for another day's work; while others leisurely removed the green baize with which they had covered the goods over night, after folding them up. Then the piles of stuffs appeared symmetrically arranged, and the whole shop looked clean and orderly, brilliant in the gay morning light pending the rush of business which would once more obstruct it, and, as it were, reduce its dimensions by the unpacking and display of linen, cloth, silk, and lace.

      In the bright light of the central hall, two young men were talking in a low voice at the silk counter. One of them, short but well set and good looking, with a pinky skin, was endeavouring

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