and possesses all his faculties (I don’t mean transcendent ones) can’t amass a capital of forty-five thousand francs in centimes, which represents a permanent income equal to our salaries, which are, after all, precarious.  In twelve years a grocer can earn enough to give him ten thousand francs a year; a painter can daub a mile of canvas and be decorated with the Legion of honor, or pose as a neglected genius.  A literary man becomes professor of something or other, or a journalist at a hundred francs for a thousand lines; he writes ‘feuilletons,’ or he gets into Saint-Pelagie for a brilliant article that offends the Jesuits,—­which of course is an immense benefit to him and makes him a politician at once.  Even a lazy man, who does nothing but make debts, has time to marry a widow who pays them; a priest finds time to become a bishop ‘in partibus.’  A sober, intelligent young fellow, who begins with a small capital as a money-changer, soon buys a share in a broker’s business; and, to go even lower, a petty clerk becomes a notary, a rag-picker lays by two or three thousand francs a year, and the poorest workmen often become manufacturers; whereas, in the rotatory movement of this present civilization, which mistakes perpetual division and redivision for progress, an unhappy civil service clerk, like Chazelle for instance, is forced to dine for twenty-two sous a meal, struggles with his tailor and bootmaker, gets into debt, and is an absolute nothing; worse than that, he becomes an idiot!  Come, gentlemen, now’s the time to make a stand!  Let us all give in our resignations!  Fleury, Chazelle, fling yourselves into other employments and become the great men you really are.”

Chazelle [calmed down by Bixiou’s allocution].  “No, I thank you” [general laughter].

Bixiou.  “You are wrong; in your situation I should try to get ahead of the general-secretary.”

Chazelle [uneasily].  “What has he to do with me?”

Bixiou.  “You’ll find out; do you suppose Baudoyer will overlook what happened just now?”

Fleury.  “Another piece of Bixiou’s spite!  You’ve a queer fellow to deal with in there.  Now, Monsieur Rabourdin,—­there’s a man for you!  He put work on my table to-day that you couldn’t get through within this office in three days; well, he expects me to have it done by four o’clock to-day.  But he is not always at my heels to hinder me from talking to my friends.”

Baudoyer [appearing at the door].  “Gentlemen, you will admit that if you have the legal right to find fault with the chamber and the administration you must at least do so elsewhere than in this office.” [To Fleury.] “What are you doing here, monsieur?”

Fleury [insolently].  “I came to tell these gentlemen that there was to be a general turn-out.  Du Bruel is sent for to the ministry, and Dutocq also.  Everybody is asking who will be appointed.”

Baudoyer [retiring].  “It is not your affair, sir; go back to your own office, and do not disturb mine.”