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.”
Fleury [in the doorway]. “It would be a shameful injustice if Rabourdin lost the place; I swear I’d leave the service. Did you find that anagram, papa Colleville?”
Colleville. “Yes, here it is.”
Fleury [leaning over Colleville’s desk]. “Capital! famous! This is just what will happen if the administration continues to play the hypocrite.” [He makes a sign to the clerks that Baudoyer is listening.] “If the government would frankly state its intentions without concealments of any kind, the liberals would know what they had to deal with. An administration which sets its best friends against itself, such men as those of the ‘Debats,’ Chateaubriand, and Royer-Collard, is only to be pitied!”
Colleville [after consulting his colleagues]. “Come, Fleury, you’re a good fellow, but don’t talk politics here; you don’t know what harm you may do us.”
Fleury [dryly]. “Well, adieu, gentlemen; I have my work to do by four o’clock.”