scanty hair, his timorous eyes, his hopping walk, his white gaiters;
he was so timid that he could not utter two words without stuttering,
almost voiceless, continually sucking jujubes, which completed the
confusion of his speech. One asked what such a weakling as he had come
to do in the Assembly, what feminine ambition run mad had urged into
public life this being useless for no matter what private activity.

By an amusing irony of fate, Jansoulet, himself agitated by all the
anxieties of his own validation, was chosen in Bureau no. 8 to draw up
the report on the election in the Deux-Sevres; and M. Sarigue, humble
and supplicating, conscious of his incapacity and filled by a horrible
dread of being sent back to his home in disgrace, used to follow about
this great jovial fellow with the curly hair and big shoulder blades
that moved like the bellows of a forge beneath a light and tightly
fitting frock-coat, without any suspicion that a poor anxious being like
himself lay concealed within that solid envelope.

As he worked at the report on the Deux-Sevres election, as he examined
the numerous protests, the accusations of electioneering trickery, meals
given, money spent, casks of wine broached at the doors of the mayors'
houses, the usual accompaniments of an election in those days, Jansoulet
used to shudder on his own account. "Why, I did all that myself," he
would say to himself, terrified. Ah! M. Sarigue need not be afraid;
never could he have put his hand on an examiner with kinder intentions
or more indulgent, for the Nabob, taking pity on the sufferer, knowing
by experience how painful is the anguish of waiting, had made haste
through his labour; and the enormous portfolio which he carried under
his arm, as he left the Mora mansion, contained his report ready to be
sent in to the bureau.

Whether it were this first essay in a public function, the kind words
of the duke, or the magnificent weather out of doors, keenly enjoyed by
this southerner, with his susceptibility to wholly physical impressions
and accustomed to life under a blue sky and the warmth of the
sunshine--however that may have been, certain it is that the attendants
of the legislative body beheld that day a proud and haughty Jansoulet
whom they had not previously known. The fat Hemerlingue's carriage,
caught sight of at the gate, recognisable by the unusual width of its
doors, completed his reinstatement in the possession of his true nature
of ass