rned this country since bureaucracy has existed,
and they will cram more than one Warcolier down your throat, I warn
you."

"Yes, if I allow it," said Vaudrey haughtily.

"Eh! my poor friend, you have already allowed it," said the veteran.

He had risen, Vaudrey had taken his hat, and he said to the minister,
leaning on his arm, with gentle familiarity, as he led him to the door:

"Power is like a kite, but there is always some rascal who holds the
thread."

"Come, come," said Vaudrey, "you are a pessimist!"

"I confess that Schopenhauer is not unpleasant to me--sometimes."

Thereupon they separated, after a cordial grasp of the hand, and Denis
Ramel resumed his pipe and his seat at the window corner, while the
minister carried away from this interview, as if he had not already been
in the habit of a frank interchange of opinions, an agreeable though
perhaps anxious impression.

He felt the need of _mentally digesting_ this conversation: the idea of
going back, on this beautiful February day, to his official apartments
did not enter his mind. He was overcome by a springtime hunger.

"To the Bois! Around the Lake!" he said to the coachman, as he
re-entered his carriage.

The air was as balmy as on an afternoon in May. Vaudrey lowered the
carriage window to breathe freely. This exterior boulevard that he
rolled along was full of merry pedestrians. One would have thought it
was a Sunday afternoon. Old people, sitting on benches, were enjoying
the early sun.

Sulpice looked at them, his brain busy with Ramel's warnings. He had
just called him a pessimist, but inwardly he acknowledged that the old
stager, who had remained a philosopher, spoke the truth. Woman! Why had
Ramel spoken to him of woman?

This half-disquieting thought speedily left Sulpice, attracted as he was
by the joyous movement, the delight of the eyes which presented itself
to his view.

In thus journeying to the Bois, he felt a delightful emotion of solitude
and forgetfulness. He gradually recovered his self-possession and became
himself once more. He drew his breath more freely in that long avenue
where, at this hour of the day, few persons passed. There was no
petition to listen to, no salutation to acknowledge.

Ah! how easy it would be to be happy, to sweetly enjoy the Paris that
fascinated him instead of burning away his life! Just now, at the foot
of the Arc de Triomphe, he had seen people dressed in blouses, sleeping
like Andalusian