"I beg your pardon. Be good enough to listen to me. Although I had some fortune, I began at once to study law, in order to become an advocate. Some time after, having a passion for the arts, I studied music, painting, and sculpture, in turn; then I turned to poetry, I wrote a poem--a bad one, perhaps, but I devoted my best energies to it, none the less. So you see that I have done something; and if I should lose now what money I still have, I could make a living honestly, and without assistance, with the small talents I have acquired. Can you say as much, you who have nothing, no future prospects, but have never been willing to do anything or to learn anything? who, instead of remaining in the sphere in which you were born, have plunged into a vice-ridden circle, and acquired the tastes and habits and manners of people who are cast out from all respectable society?" "What's that? what's that? I'm a cabinetmaker! Isn't that a respectable trade? Anyone would think, to hear you, that I worked nights--on the dust heaps!" "Oh! I don't despise any trade, monsieur. I esteem every man whose behavior is honorable. The mechanic, the artisan, the day laborer, are all entitled to my esteem and consideration when they are honest and upright. I say again, there is no despicable trade; the vicious, lazy, idle people, the drunken debauchees, no matter to what rank in life they belong, are the ones whom we should look upon with contempt and shame. You claim to be a mechanic, but you lie. You are nothing, neither cabinetmaker nor anything else, because you will not do anything, because work is a burden and a bore to you, because you have acquired the habit of passing your time in wine shops and dance halls, or in vile dens of debauchery, where you have associated yourself with wretches who are the offscourings of society! And at thirty-four years of age, you continue this line of conduct! Ah! you are incorrigible; that is evident!" Ballangier threw his pipe on the floor, exclaiming angrily: "Damnation! I'm sick of this sort of thing! If I am incorrigible, I don't quite see why you preach this sermon at me!" "I am entitled to do it; if you had followed my advice, listened to my entreaties, you would not be where I find you now. Furthermore, if my sermons displease you, why do you come here? I told you not to. Do I not send you regularly every three months the allowance that I have consented to make you, although, as you well know, I am under no obligation to do it? Only a fortnight ago, I went myself and handed your quarterly payment to your concierge." "That's just what I don't want you to do! He kept half of it, the miserly old screw!" "Kept it! You told me yourself that he was an honest man; and you say that he kept money belonging to you!" "He claimed that I owed him for loans, and food, and carrying letters--mere trifles!" "If you owed him, you should pay him."