their
imposing, high and mighty airs, the legislative haughtiness became more
affable, recalled to naturalness by nature, he knew that a sneering,
insulting item would appear in the _Messager_ the next morning, holding
him up to his constituents as "a wine-bibber _emeritus_."

They were another source of vexation to him,--those terrible
constituents.

They came in flocks, invaded the Salle des Pas-Perdus, galloped about in
all directions like excited little black kids, calling from one end to
the other of the echoing hall: "O Pe! O Tche!" inhaling with delight the
odor of government, of administration that filled the air, making eyes
at the ministers who passed, sniffing at their heels, as if some prebend
were about to fall from their venerable pockets, from their swollen
portfolios; but crowding around "Moussiou" Jansoulet especially, with so
many urgent petitions, demands, demonstrations, that, in order to rid
himself of that gesticulating mob at which everybody turned to look, and
which made him seem like the delegate of a tribe of Touaregs in the
midst of a civilized people, he was obliged to glance imploringly at
some usher who was skilled in the art of rescue under such circumstances
and would come to him in a great hurry and say, "that he was wanted
immediately in the eighth committee." So that the poor Nabob,
persecuted everywhere, driven from the corridors, the Pas-Perdus, the
restaurant, had adopted the course of never leaving his bench, where he
sat motionless and mute throughout the sitting.

He had, however, one friend in the Chamber,--a deputy newly elected for
Deux-Sevres, named M. Sarigue, a poor fellow not unlike the inoffensive,
ignoble animal whose name he bore,[2] with his sparse, red hair, his
frightened eyes, his hopping gait in his white gaiters. He was so shy
that he could not say two words without stammering, almost tongue-tied,
incessantly rolling balls of chewing-gum around in his mouth, which put
the finishing touch to the viscosity of his speech; and every one
wondered why such an impotent creature had cared to become a member of
the Assembly, what delirious female ambition had spurred on to public
office a man so unfitted for the least important private function.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] A _sarigue_ is an opossum.

By an amusing manifestation of the irony of fate, Jansoulet, who was
intensely agitated by the uncertainty concerning his own confirmation,
was chosen by the eighth committee