at the stove at the same moment of the day.  His sole vanity consisted in wearing an infallible watch, timed daily at the Hotel de Ville as he passed it on his way to the office.  From six to eight o’clock in the morning he kept the books of a large shop in the rue Saint-Antoine, and from six to eight o’clock in the evening those of the Maison Camusot, in the rue des Bourdonnais.  He thus earned three thousand francs a year, counting his salary from the government.  In a few months his term of service would be up, when he would retire on a pension; he therefore showed the utmost indifference to the political intrigues of the bureaus.  Like his elder brother, to whom retirement from active service had proved a fatal blow, he would probably grow an old man when he could no longer come from his home to the ministry, sit in the same chair and copy a certain number of pages.  Poiret’s eyes were dim, his glance weak and lifeless, his skin discolored and wrinkled, gray in tone and speckled with bluish dots; his nose flat, his lips drawn inward to the mouth, where a few defective teeth still lingered.  His gray hair, flattened to the head by the pressure of his hat, gave him the look of an ecclesiastic,—­a resemblance he would scarcely have liked, for he hated priests and clergy, though he could give no reasons for his anti-religious views.  This antipathy, however, did not prevent him from being extremely attached to whatever administration happened to be in power.  He never buttoned his old green coat, even on the coldest days, and he always wore shoes with ties, and black trousers.

No human life was ever lived so thoroughly by rule.  Poiret kept all his receipted bills, even the most trifling, and all his account-books, wrapped in old shirts and put away according to their respective years from the time of his entrance at the ministry.  Rough copies of his letters were dated and put away in a box, ticketed “My Correspondence.”  He dined at the same restaurant (the Sucking Calf in the place du Chatelet), and sat in the same place, which the waiters kept for him.  He never gave five minutes more time to the shop in the rue Saint Antoine than justly belonged to it, and at half-past eight precisely he reached the Cafe David, where he breakfasted and remained till eleven.  There he listened to political discussions, his arms crossed on his cane, his chin in his right hand, never saying a word.  The dame du comptoir, the only woman to whom he ever spoke with pleasure, was the sole confidant of the little events of his life, for his seat was close to her counter.  He played dominoes, the only game he was capable of understanding.  When his partners did not happen to be present, he usually went to sleep with his back against the wainscot, holding a newspaper in his hand, the wooden file resting on the marble of his table.  He was interested in the buildings going up in Paris, and spent his Sundays in walking about to examine them.  He was often heard to say, “I saw the Louvre emerge