Fleury.  “Are you blind?”

Sebastien.  “I don’t like to look at what I ought not to see.”

Phellion [delighted].  “Well said, young man!”

Vimeux.  “The devil! well, you looked at Madame Rabourdin enough, any how; a charming woman.”

Fleury.  “Pooh! thin as a rail.  I saw her in the Tuileries, and I much prefer Percilliee, the ballet-mistress, Castaing’s victim.”

Phellion.  “What has an actress to do with the wife of a government official?”

Dutocq.  “They both play comedy.”

Fleury [looking askance at Dutocq].  “The physical has nothing to do with the moral, and if you mean—­”

Dutocq.  “I mean nothing.”

Fleury.  “Do you all want to know which of us will really be made head of this bureau?”

All.  “Yes, tell us.”

Fleury.  “Colleville.”

Thuillier.  “Why?”

Fleury.  “Because Madame Colleville has taken the shortest way to it —­through the sacristy.”

Thuillier.  “I am too much Colleville’s friend not to beg you, Monsieur
Fleury, to speak respectfully of his wife.”

Phellion.  “A defenceless woman should never be made the subject of conversation here—­”

Vimeux.  “All the more because the charming Madame Colleville won’t invite Fleury to her house.  He backbites her in revenge.”

Fleury.  “She may not receive me on the same footing that she does Thuillier, but I go there—­”

Thuillier.  “When? how?—­under her windows?”

Though Fleury was dreaded as a bully in all the offices, he received Thuillier’s speech in silence.  This meekness, which surprised the other clerks, was owing to a certain note for two hundred francs, of doubtful value, which Thuillier agreed to pass over to his sister.  After this skirmish dead silence prevailed.  They all wrote steadily from one to three o’clock.  Du Bruel did not return.

About half-past three the usual preparations for departure, the brushing of hats, the changing of coats, went on in all the ministerial offices.  That precious thirty minutes thus employed served to shorten by just so much the day’s labor.  At this hour the over-heated rooms cool off; the peculiar odor that hangs about the bureaus evaporates; silence is restored.  By four o’clock none but a few clerks who do their duty conscientiously remain.  A minister may know who are the real workers under him if he will take the trouble to walk through the divisions after four o’clock,—­a species of prying, however, that no one of his dignity would condescend to.

The various heads of divisions and bureaus usually encountered each other in the courtyards at this hour and exchanged opinions on the events of the day.  On this occasion they departed by twos and threes, most of them agreeing in favor of Rabourdin; while the old stagers, like Monsieur Clergeot, shook their heads and said, “Habent sua sidera lites.”  Saillard and Baudoyer were politely avoided, for nobody knew what to say to them about La Billardiere’s death, it being fully understood that Baudoyer wanted the place, though it was certainly not due to him.