Lesable had collected his papers; but feeling himself attacked he wished to remain, held back by pride, confused and irritated, and wishing to know who had betrayed his secret.
Then the recollection of the confidence he had made to his chief came back to him, and he at once understood it was necessary to express his indignation if he did not wish to become the butt of the whole Ministry.
Boissel marched up and down the room, all the time tittering. He imitated the hoarse voices of the street criers, and bellowed: "The secret of begetting children, for ten centimes—two sous! Buy the secret of begetting children—revealed by Monsieur Savon, with many horrible details." Everybody began to laugh except Lesable and his father-in-law, and Pitolet, turning toward the order-clerk, said: "What is the matter with you, Cachelin? You seem to have lost your habitual gaiety. One would think that you do not find it amusing to believe that old Savon could have had a child by his wife. I think it very funny. Everybody cannot do as much."
Lesable pretended to be deeply absorbed in his papers and to hear nothing of what was going on about him, but he was as white as a ghost.
Boissel took up the strain in the same mocking voice: "The utility of heirs for getting an inheritance, ten centimes, two sous; who will buy?"
Then Maze, who thought this was very poor sort of wit, and who personally was enraged at Lesable having robbed him of the hope of a fortune which he had secretly cherished, said pointedly: "What is the matter with you, Lesable? You are very pale."
Lesable raised his head and looked his colleague full in the face. He hesitated a second, while his lip trembled as he tried to formulate a bitter reply, but, unable to find the phrase he sought, he responded: "There is nothing the matter with me. I am only astonished that you display so much delicacy."
Maze, who stood with his back to the fire and his hands under his coat-tails, replied, laughing: "One does the best one can, old man. We are like you, we do not always succeed—"
An explosion of laughter interrupted his words. Old Savon, who now vaguely comprehended that the clerks no longer addressed their railleries to him, looked around with his mouth gaping and his pen suspended in the air. And Cachelin waited, ready to come to blows with the first person who came in his way.
Lesable stammered: "I do not understand. In what have I not succeeded?"