His Excellency, Monseigneur the Minister of
Police----"
"Yes, his Excellency is taking a personal interest in the matter,"
said Gondureau.
Who would think it probable that Poiret, a retired clerk, doubtless
possessed of some notions of civic virtue, though there might be
nothing else in his head--who would think it likely that such a man
would continue to lend an ear to this supposed independent gentleman
of the Rue de Buffon, when the latter dropped the mask of a decent
citizen by that word "police," and gave a glimpse of the features of a
detective from the Rue de Jerusalem? And yet nothing was more natural.
Perhaps the following remarks from the hitherto unpublished records
made by certain observers will throw a light on the particular species
to which Poiret belonged in the great family of fools. There is a race
of quill-drivers, confined in the columns of the budget between the
first degree of latitude (a kind of administrative Greenland where the
salaries begin at twelve hundred francs) to the third degree, a more
temperate zone, where incomes grow from three to six thousand francs,
a climate where the _bonus_ flourishes like a half-hardy annual in
spite of some difficulties of culture.
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