“You are making mountains of flour.”
“Yes; high as Mont Blanc; and then, we now have a fleet.”
“What! a fleet?” cried Savinien, whose face expressed doubt and surprise at the same time.
“Yes, a steam fleet. Last year Madame Desvarennes was not satisfied with the state in which her corn came from the East. The corn was damaged owing to defective stowage; the firm claimed compensation from the steamship company. The claim was only moderately satisfied, Madame Desvarennes got vexed, and now we import our own. We have branches at Smyrna and Odessa.”
“It is fabulous! If it goes on, my aunt will have an administration as important as that of a European state. Oh! you are happy here, you people; you are busy. I amuse myself! And if you knew how it wearies me! I am withering, consuming myself, I am longing for business.”
And saying these words, young Monsieur Desvarennes allowed a sorrowful moan to escape him.
“It seems to me,” said Marechal, “that it only depends upon yourself to do as much and more business than any one?”
“You know well enough that it is not so,” sighed Savinien; “my aunt is opposed to it.”
“What a mistake!” cried Marechal, quickly. “I have heard Madame Desvarennes say more than twenty times how she regretted your being unemployed. Come into the firm, you will have a good berth in the counting-house.”
“In the counting-house!” cried Savinien, bitterly; “there’s the sore point. Now look here; my friend, do you think that an organization like mine is made to bend to the trivialities of a copying clerk’s work? To follow the humdrum of every-day routine? To blacken paper? To become a servant?—me! with what I have in my brain?”