One of his greatest pleasures was to explore the environs of Paris, which he did with a map.  He knew every inch of Arcueil, Bievre, Fontenay-aux-Roses, and Aulnay, so famous as the resort of great writers, and hoped in time to know the whole western side of the country around Paris.  He intended to put his eldest son into a government office and his second into the Ecole Polytechnique.  He often said to the elder, “When you have the honor to be a government clerk”; though he suspected him of a preference for the exact sciences and did his best to repress it, mentally resolved to abandon the lad to his own devices if he persisted.  When Rabourdin sent for him to come down and receive instructions about some particular piece of work, Phellion gave all his mind to it,—­listening to every word the chief said, as a dilettante listens to an air at the Opera.  Silent in the office, with his feet in the air resting on a wooden desk, and never moving them, he studied his task conscientiously.  His official letters were written with the utmost gravity, and transmitted the commands of the minister in solemn phrases.  Monsieur Phellion’s face was that of a pensive ram, with little color and pitted by the small-pox; the lips were thick and the lower one pendent; the eyes light-blue, and his figure above the common height.  Neat and clean as a master of history and geography in a young ladies’ school ought to be, he wore fine linen, a pleated shirt-frill, a black cashmere waistcoat, left open and showing a pair of braces embroidered by his daughter, a diamond in the bosom of his shirt, a black coat, and blue trousers.  In winter he added a nut-colored box-coat with three capes, and carried a loaded stick, necessitated, he said, by the profound solitude of the quarter in which he lived.  He had given up taking snuff, and referred to this reform as a striking example of the empire a man could exercise over himself.  Monsieur Phellion came slowly up the stairs, for he was afraid of asthma, having what he called an “adipose chest.”  He saluted Antoine with dignity.

The next to follow was a copying-clerk, who presented a strange contrast to the virtuous Phellion.  Vimeux was a young man of twenty-five, with a salary of fifteen hundred francs, well-made and graceful, with a romantic face, and eyes, hair, beard, and eyebrows as black as jet, fine teeth, charming hands, and wearing a moustache so carefully trimmed that he seemed to have made it the business and occupation of his life.  Vimeux had such aptitude for work that he despatched it much quicker than any of the other clerks.  “He has a gift, that young man!” Phellion said of him when he saw him cross his legs and have nothing to do for the rest of the day, having got through his appointed task; “and see what a little dandy he is!” Vimeux breakfasted on a roll and a glass of water, dined for twenty sous at Katcomb’s, and lodged in a furnished room, for which he paid twelve francs a month.  His happiness, his sole