The three friends followed the three deputies, at a distance, into the lobby.
“Cousin, look at those two men,” said Leon, pointing out to him a former minister and the leader of the Left Centre. “Those are two men who really have ‘the ear of the Chamber,’ and who are called in jest ministers of the department of the Opposition. They have the ear of the Chamber so completely that they are always pulling it.”
“It is four o’clock,” said Bixiou, “let us go back to the rue de Berlin.”
“Yes; you’ve now seen the heart of the government, cousin, and you must next be shown the ascarides, the taenia, the intestinal worm,—the republican, since I must needs name him,” said Leon.
When the three friends were once more packed into their hackney-coach, Gazonal looked at his cousin and Bixiou like a man who had a mind to launch a flood of oratorical and Southern bile upon the elements.
“I distrusted with all my might this great hussy of a town,” he rolled out in Southern accents; “but since this morning I despise her! The poor little province you think so petty is an honest girl; but Paris is a prostitute, a greedy, lying comedian; and I am very thankful not to be robbed of my skin in it.”
“The day is not over yet,” said Bixiou, sententiously, winking at Leon.
“And why do you complain in that stupid way,” said Leon, “of a prostitution to which you will owe the winning of your lawsuit? Do you think you are more virtuous than we, less of a comedian, less greedy, less liable to fall under some temptation, less conceited than those we have been making dance for you like puppets?”
“Try me!”
“Poor lad!” said Leon, shrugging his shoulders, “haven’t you already promised Rastignac your electoral influence?”