Explore "The Patron" by Guy de Maupassant on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
He would never have dared to hope that such good fortune would be his! The son of a provincial Sheriff, Jean Marin had come to Paris, like so many others, to study law in the Latin Quarter. In the various cafés which he had successively patronized, he had made friends with a number of talkative students, who chattered about politics as they drank their beer. He developed great admiration for them and became their follower, even paying for their drinks when he happened to have any money.
Afterwards, he practised law and handled some suits, which he lost, when, one morning, he read in the papers that a friend of his student days had become a deputy. Again he became his faithful servant, the friend who discharges all the troublesome errands, whom one sends for when he is wanted, and with whom one stands on no ceremony.