“You are early this morning,” said Antoine to Dutocq, laughing.

“So are you, Antoine,” answered Dutocq; “you see, the newspapers do come earlier than you let us have them at the office.”

“They did to-day, by chance,” replied Antoine, not disconcerted; “they never come two days together at the same hour.”

The two nephews looked at each other as if to say, in admiration of their uncle, “What cheek he has!”

“Though I make two sous by all his breakfasts,” muttered Antoine, as he heard Monsieur Dutocq close the office door, “I’d give them up to get that man out of our division.”

“Ah, Monsieur Sebastien, you are not the first here to-day,” said Antoine, a quarter of an hour later, to the supernumerary.

“Who is here?” asked the poor lad, turning pale.

“Monsieur Dutocq,” answered Laurent.

Virgin natures have, beyond all others, the inexplicable gift of second-sight, the reason of which lies perhaps in the purity of their nervous systems, which are, as it were, brand-new.  Sebastien had long guessed Dutocq’s hatred to his revered Rabourdin.  So that when Laurent uttered his name a dreadful presentiment took possession of the lad’s mind, and crying out, “I feared it!” he flew like an arrow into the corridor.

“There is going to be a row in the division,” said Antoine, shaking his white head as he put on his livery.  “It is very certain that Monsieur le baron is off to his account.  Yes, Madame Gruget, the nurse, told me he couldn’t live through the day.  What a stir there’ll be! oh! won’t there!  Go along, you fellows, and see if the stoves are drawing properly.  Heavens and earth! our world is coming down about our ears.”

“That poor young one,” said Laurent, “had a sort of sunstroke when he heard that Jesuit of a Dutocq had got here before him.”

“I have told him a dozen times,—­for after all one ought to tell the truth to an honest clerk, and what I call an honest clerk is one like that little fellow who gives us ‘recta’ his ten francs on New-Year’s day,—­I have said to him again and again:  The more you work the more they’ll make you work, and they won’t promote you.  He doesn’t listen to me; he tires himself out staying here till five o’clock, an hour after all the others have gone.  Folly! he’ll never get on that way!  The proof is that not a word has been said about giving him an appointment, though he has been here two years.  It’s a shame! it makes my blood boil.”

“Monsieur Rabourdin is very fond of Monsieur Sebastien,” said Laurent.

“But Monsieur Rabourdin isn’t a minister,” retorted Antoine; “it will be a hot day when that happens, and the hens will have teeth; he is too—­but mum!  When I think that I carry salaries to those humbugs who stay away and do as they please, while that poor little La Roche works himself to death, I ask myself if God ever thinks of the civil service.  And what do they give you,