Mr. Hopkins, the meek-mannered draper opposite, was the first to act on this inward vision, being the more ambitious of a little masculine talk because his customers were chiefly women.
Well, it was young Leonards, old Leonards the draper's son, as great a scamp as ever lived — who plagued his father almost to death, and then ran off to sea.
" Thank heaven" ! said the draper in conclusion, " if the father drinks and runs after women, the son at all events has learnt the value of money here" .
Mr. Bambridge was rather curt to the draper, feeling that Hopkins was of course glad to talk to him, but that he was not going to waste much of his talk on Hopkins.
That evening, in their room, when Madame Baudu questioned her husband as to the result of the conversation, the draper had regained his obstinate resolve to fight on in person to the bitter end.
We went into a small country town, where living was cheaper than in Milton, and where I got employment in a draper's shop (a capital place, by the way, for obtaining a knowledge of goods).
But the draper, full of disdain for these old women's tales, shrugged his shoulders and resumed his story, explaining the situation commercially. The Ladies' Paradise had been founded in 1822 by two brothers, named Deleuze.
" Come to lunch" ! exclaimed the draper, turning towards his niece; and when they sat ready in the narrow dining-room behind the shop, he called the first-hand who had lingered behind: " Colomban lunch" !
The latter did not know them, never having set foot in the little town since the day when he had left it as a boy, to enter the service of the draper Hauchecorne, whose daughter he had subsequently married.