“He is always so when he dines at the ministry,” remarked Madame Saillard; “happily, it is only twice a year, or he’d die of it.  Saillard was never made to be in the government—­ Well, now, I do hope, Saillard,” she continued in a loud tone, “that you are not going to keep on those silk breeches and that handsome coat.  Go and take them off; don’t wear them at home, my man.”

“Your father has something on his mind,” said Baudoyer to his wife, when the cashier was in his bedroom, undressing without any fire.

“Perhaps Monsieur de la Billardiere is dead,” said Elisabeth, simply; “and as he is anxious you should have the place, it worries him.”

“Can I be useful in any way?” said the vicar of Saint-Paul’s; “if so, pray use my services.  I have the honor to be known to Madame la Dauphine.  These are days when public offices should be given only to faithful men, whose religious principles are not to be shaken.”

“Dear me!” said Falleix, “do men of merit need protectors and influence to get places in the government service?  I am glad I am an iron-master; my customers know where to find a good article—­”

“Monsieur,” interrupted Baudoyer, “the government is the government; never attack it in this house.”

“You speak like the ‘Constitutionel,’” said the vicar.

“The ‘Constitutionel’ never says anything different from that,” replied Baudoyer, who never read it.

The cashier believed his son-in-law to be as superior in talent to Rabourdin as God was greater than Saint-Crepin, to use his own expression; but the good man coveted this appointment in a straightforward, honest way.  Influenced by the feeling which leads all officials to seek promotion,—­a violent, unreflecting, almost brutal passion,—­he desired success, just as he desired the cross of the Legion of honor, without doing anything against his conscience to obtain it, and solely, as he believed, on the strength of his son-in-law’s merits.  To his thinking, a man who had patiently spent twenty-five years in a government office behind an iron railing had sacrificed himself to his country and deserved the cross.  But all that he dreamed of doing to promote his son-in-law’s appointment in La Billardiere’s place was to say a word to his Excellency’s wife when he took her the month’s salary.

“Well, Saillard, you look as if you had lost all your friends!  Do speak; do, pray, tell us something,” cried his wife when he came back into the room.

Saillard, after making a little sign to his daughter, turned on his heel to keep himself from talking politics before strangers.  When Monsieur Mitral and the vicar had departed, Saillard rolled back the card-table and sat down in an armchair in the attitude he always assumed when about to tell some office-gossip,—­a series of movements which answered the purpose of the three knocks given at the Theatre-Francais.  After binding his wife, daughter, and son-in-law to