Dutocq. “Well, you needn’t make the lithograph till success is proved.”
Bixiou. “Why don’t you come out and tell me the whole truth?”
Dutocq. “I must first see how the land lays in the bureau; we will talk about it later” [goes off].
Bixiou [alone in the corridor]. “That fish, for he’s more a fish than a bird, that Dutocq has a good idea in his head—I’m sure I don’t know where he stole it. If Baudoyer should succeed La Billardiere it would be fun, more than fun—profit!” [Returns to the office.] “Gentlemen, I announce glorious changes; papa La Billardiere is dead, really dead,—no nonsense, word of honor! Godard is off on business for our excellent chief Baudoyer, successor presumptive to the deceased.” [Minard, Desroys, and Colleville raise their heads in amazement; they all lay down their pens, and Colleville blows his nose.] “Every one of us is to be promoted! Colleville will be under-head-clerk at the very least. Minard may have my place as chief clerk—why not? he is quite as dull as I am. Hey, Minard, if you should get twenty-five hundred francs a-year your little wife would be uncommonly pleased, and you could buy yourself a pair of boots now and then.”
Colleville. “But you don’t get twenty-five hundred francs.”
Bixiou. “Monsieur Dutocq gets that in Rabourdin’s office; why shouldn’t I get it this year? Monsieur Baudoyer gets it.”
Colleville. “Only through the influence of Monsieur Saillard. No other chief clerk gets that in any of the divisions.”
Paulmier. “Bah! Hasn’t Monsieur Cochin three thousand? He succeeded Monsieur Vavasseur, who served ten years under the Empire at four thousand. His salary was dropped to three when the King first returned; then to two thousand five hundred before Vavasseur died. But Monsieur Cochin, who succeeded him, had influence enough to get the salary put back to three thousand.”
Colleville. “Monsieur Cochin signs E. A. L. Cochin (he is named Emile-Adolphe-Lucian), which, when anagrammed, gives Cochineal. Now observe, he’s a partner in a druggist’s business in the rue des Lombards, the Maison Matifat, which made its fortune by that identical colonial product.”
Baudoyer [entering]. “Monsieur Chazelle, I see, is not here; you will be good enough to say I asked for him, gentlemen.”