Bixiou [who had hastily stuck a hat on Chazelle’s chair when he heard Baudoyer’s step]. “Excuse me, Monsieur, but Chazelle has gone to the Rabourdins’ to make an inquiry.”
Chazelle [entering with his hat on his head, and not seeing Baudoyer]. “La Billardiere is done for, gentlemen! Rabourdin is head of the division and Master of petitions; he hasn’t stolen /his/ promotion, that’s very certain.”
Baudoyer [to Chazelle]. “You found that appointment in your second hat, I presume” [points to the hat on the chair]. “This is the third time within a month that you have come after nine o’clock. If you continue the practice you will get on—elsewhere.” [To Bixiou, who is reading the newspaper.] “My dear Monsieur Bixiou, do pray leave the newspapers to these gentlemen who are going to breakfast, and come into my office for your orders for the day. I don’t know what Monsieur Rabourdin wants with Gabriel; he keeps him to do his private errands, I believe. I’ve rung three times and can’t get him.” [Baudoyer and Bixiou retire into the private office.]
Chazelle. “Damned unlucky!”
Paulmier [delighted to annoy Chazelle]. “Why didn’t you look about when you came into the room? You might have seen the elephant, and the hat too; they are big enough to be visible.”
Chazelle [dismally]. “Disgusting business! I don’t see why we should be treated like slaves because the government gives us four francs and sixty-five centimes a day.”
Fleury [entering]. “Down with Baudoyer! hurrah for Rabourdin!—that’s the cry in the division.”
Chazelle [getting more and more angry]. “Baudoyer can turn off me if he likes, I sha’n’t care. In Paris there are a thousand ways of earning five francs a day; why, I could earn that at the Palais de Justice, copying briefs for the lawyers.”
Paulmier [still prodding him]. “It is very easy to say that; but a government place is a government place, and that plucky Colleville, who works like a galley-slave outside of this office, and who could earn, if he lost his appointment, more than his salary, prefers to keep his place. Who the devil is fool enough to give up his expectations?”
Chazelle [continuing his philippic]. “You may not be, but I am! We have no chances at all. Time was when nothing was more encouraging than a civil-service career. So many men were in the army that there were not enough for the government work; the maimed and the halt and the sick ones, like Paulmier, and the near-sighted ones, all had their chance of a rapid promotion. But now, ever since the Chamber invented what they called special training, and the rules and regulations for civil-service examiners, we are worse off than common soldiers. The poorest places are at the mercy of a thousand mischances because we are now ruled by a thousand sovereigns.”