Colleville.  “If my place is taken from me, Francois Keller will make it hot for your minister.” [Dead silence.] “I’d have you to know, Master Dutocq, that all known anagrams have actually come to pass.  Look here,—­you, yourself,—­don’t you marry, for there’s ‘coqu’ in your name.”

Bixiou [interrupting].  “And d, t, for de-testable.”

Dutocq [without seeming angry].  “I don’t care, as long as it is only in my name.  Why don’t you anagrammatize, or whatever you call it, ’Xavier Rabourdin, chef du bureau’?”

Colleville.  “Bless you, so I have!”

Bixiou [mending his pen].  “And what did you make of it?”

Colleville.  “It comes out as follows:  D’abord reva bureaux, E-u,—­(you catch the meaning? et eut—­and had) E-u fin riche; which signifies that after first belonging to the administration, he gave it up and got rich elsewhere.” [Repeats.] “D’abord reva bureaux, E-u fin riche.”

Dutocq.  “That is queer!”

Bixiou.  “Try Isidore Baudoyer.”

Colleville [mysteriously].  “I sha’n’t tell the other anagrams to any one but Thuillier.”

Bixiou.  “I’ll bet you a breakfast that I can tell that one myself.”

Colleville.  “And I’ll pay if you find it out.”

Bixiou.  “Then I shall breakfast at your expense; but you won’t be angry, will you?  Two such geniuses as you and I need never conflict.  ‘Isidore Baudoyer’ anagrams into ‘Ris d’aboyeur d’oie.’”

Colleville [petrified with amazement].  “You stole it from me!”

Bixiou [with dignity].  “Monsieur Colleville, do me the honor to believe that I am rich enough in absurdity not to steal my neighbor’s nonsense.”

Baudoyer [entering with a bundle of papers in his hand].  “Gentlemen, I request you to shout a little louder; you bring this office into such high repute with the administration.  My worthy coadjutor, Monsieur Clergeot, did me the honor just now to come and ask a question, and he heard the noise you are making” [passes into Monsieur Godard’s room].

Bixiou [in a low voice].  “The watch-dog is very tame this morning; there’ll be a change of weather before night.”

Dutocq [whispering to Bixiou].  “I have something I want to say to you.”

Bixiou [fingering Dutocq’s waistcoat].  “You’ve a pretty waistcoat, that cost you nothing; is that what you want to say?”

Dutocq.  “Nothing, indeed!  I never paid so dear for anything in my life.  That stuff cost six francs a yard in the best shop in the rue de la Paix,—­a fine dead stuff, the very thing for deep mourning.”

Bixiou.  “You know about engravings and such things, my dear fellow, but you are totally ignorant of the laws of etiquette.  Well, no man can be a universal genius!  Silk is positively not admissible in deep mourning.  Don’t you see I am wearing woollen?  Monsieur Rabourdin, Monsieur Baudoyer, and the minister are all in woollen; so is the faubourg Saint-Germain.  There’s no one here but Minard who doesn’t wear woollen; he’s afraid of being taken for a sheep.  That’s the reason why he didn’t put on mourning for Louis XVIII.”