"Yes. I haf chust peen to see him in his boor home, vere he ees happy mit his children—"
"I will give him the cashier's place. Old Baudrand is going to leave."
"Ah! Gott pless you!" cried Schmucke.
"Very well, my good, kind fellow, meet me at Berthier's office about four o'clock this afternoon. Everything shall be ready, and you shall be secured from want for the rest of your days. You shall draw your six thousand francs, and you shall have the same salary with Garangeot that you used to have with Pons."
"No," Schmucke answered. "I shall not lif. . . . I haf no heart for anydings; I feel that I am attacked—"
"Poor lamb!" Gaudissart muttered to himself as the German took his leave. "But, after all, one lives on mutton; and, as the sublime Beranger says, 'Poor sheep! you were made to be shorn,'" and he hummed the political squib by way of giving vent to his feelings. Then he rang for the office-boy.
"Call my carriage," he said.
"Rue de Hanovre," he told the coachman.
The man of ambitions by this time had reappeared; he saw the way to the Council of State lying straight before him.
And Schmucke? He was busy buying flowers and cakes for Topinard's children, and went home almost joyously.