Nine o'clock struck as Denise came down, leaning on Madame Aurélie's arm. Out of doors an ardent blue sky was warming the streets, cabs were rolling towards the railway stations, the whole population of Paris rigged out in Sunday attire was streaming towards the suburban woods. Inside the Paradise, which the large open bays flooded with sunshine, the imprisoned staff had just commenced stock-taking. They had closed the doors and people halted on the pavement, looking through the windows in astonishment that the shop should be shut when such extraordinary activity prevailed inside. From one end of the galleries to the other, from the top to the bottom floor, there was a continual tramping of employees; arms were ever being raised and parcels were flying about above their heads; and all this amidst a tempest of shouts and calling out of figures, ascending in confusion and becoming a deafening roar. Each of the thirty-nine departments did its work apart, without troubling about its neighbour. At this early hour the shelves had hardly been touched, there were only a few bales of goods on the floors. They must get up a good deal more steam if they were to finish that evening.
"Why have you come down?" asked Marguerite of Denise, good-naturedly. "You'll only make yourself worse, and we are quite numerous enough to do the work."
"That's what I told her," declared Madame Aurélie, "but she insisted on coming down to help us."
All the young ladies flocked round Denise. The work was even interrupted for a time. They complimented her, listening with all sorts of exclamations to the story of her sprained ankle. At last Madame Aurélie made her sit down at a table; and it was understood that she should merely write down the articles as they were called out. On such a day as this they requisitioned all the employees who were capable of holding a pen: the inspectors, the cashiers, the clerks, even the shop messengers; and each department annexed some of these assistants of a day in order to get the work over more quickly. It was thus that Denise found herself installed near Lhomme the cashier and Joseph the messenger, both of whom were bending over large sheets of paper.
"Five mantles, cloth, fur trimming, third size, at two hundred and forty francs!" called Marguerite. "Four ditto, first size, at two hundred and twenty!"
The work once more commenced. Behind Marguerite three saleswomen were emptying the cupboards, classifying the articles, and giving them to her in bundles; and, when she had called them out, she threw them on the table, where they were gradually accumulating in huge piles. Lhomme jotted down the articles whilst Joseph checked him by keeping another list. Whilst this was going on, Madame Aurélie herself, assisted by three other saleswomen, was counting out the silk garments, which Denise entered on the sheets of paper given to her. Clara on her side was looking after the heaps, arranging them in such a manner that they should occupy the least possible space on the tables. But she was not paying much attention to her work, for many things were already tumbling down.
"I say," she asked of a little saleswoman who had joined that winter, "are they going to give you a rise? You know that the second-hand is to have two thousand francs, which, with her commission, will bring her in nearly seven thousand."
The little saleswoman, without ceasing to pass some cloaks down, replied that if they didn't give her eight hundred francs she would take her hook. The rises were always given on the day after the stock-taking; it was also then, as the amount of business done during the year became known, that the managers of the departments drew their commission on the increase of this amount, as compared with that of the preceding year. Thus, despite the bustle and uproar of the work, the impassioned gossiping went on everywhere. Between every two articles that were called out, they talked of nothing but money. The rumour ran that Madame Aurélie's gains would exceed twenty-five thousand francs; and this huge sum greatly excited the young ladies. Marguerite, the best saleswoman after Denise, had for her part made four thousand five hundred francs, that is fifteen hundred francs salary and about three thousand francs commission; whilst Clara had not made two thousand five hundred altogether.
"I don't care a button for their rises!" she resumed, still talking to the little saleswoman. "If papa were dead I would jolly soon clear out of this! Still it exasperates me to see seven thousand francs given to that strip of a girl! What do you say?"
Madame Aurélie, turning round with her imperial air, violently interrupted the conversation. "Be quiet, young ladies! We can't hear ourselves speak, my word of honour!"