“Do me the kindness to let me have a copy of that clause within an hour,” said Bongrand.
“What good is it to you?” asked Goupil.
“Do you want to be a notary?” answered the justice of peace, looking sternly at Dionis’s proposed successor.
“Of course I do,” cried Goupil. “I’ve swallowed too many affronts not to succeed now. I beg you to believe, monsieur, that the miserable creature once called Goupil has nothing in common with Maitre Jean-Sebastien-Marie Goupil, notary of Nemours and husband of Mademoiselle Massin. The two beings do not know each other. They are no longer even alike. Look at me!”
Thus adjured Monsieur Bongrand took notice of Goupil’s clothes. The new notary wore a white cravat, a shirt of dazzling whiteness adorned with ruby buttons, a waistcoat of red velvet, with trousers and coat of handsome black broad-cloth, made in Paris. His boots were neat; his hair, carefully combed, was perfumed—in short he was metamorphosed.
“The fact is you are another man,” said Bongrand.
“Morally as well as physically. Virtue comes with practice—a practice; besides, money is the source of cleanliness—”
“Morally as well as physically,” returned Bongrand, settling his spectacles.
“Ha! monsieur, is a man worth a hundred thousand francs a year ever a democrat? Consider me in future as an honest man who knows what refinement is, and who intends to love his wife,” said Goupil; “and what’s more, I shall prevent my clients from ever doing dirty actions.”
“Well, make haste,” said Bongrand. “Let me have that copy in an hour, and notary Goupil will have undone some of the evil deeds of Goupil the clerk.”