me a
place, Monsieur Ramel? I would do anything, heavy work if need be, or
bookkeeping, if it is desired. I would like bookkeeping better, although
it is not my line, because the forge fire, the coal and heat, as you
see, affect me there now--he touched his neck--it strangles me and
hastens the end too quickly. It is true for that I am in the world."

Vaudrey felt himself stirred even to his bones by the mournful, musical
voice of the consumptive, by this true misery, this poverty expressed
without phrases and this claim of labor. All the questions _yonder_, as
Garnier said, in the committees and sub-committees, in the tribune and
in the lobbies, discussions, disputes, personal questions cloaked under
the guise of the general welfare, suddenly appeared to him as petty and
vain, narrow and egotistical beside the formidable question of bread
which was propounded to him so quietly by this man of the people, who
was not a rebel of the violent days, but the unfortunate brother, the
eternal Lazarus crying, without threat, but simply, sadly: "And I?"

He would have liked, without making himself known, to give something to
this sufferer, to promise him a position. He did not dare to offer it or
to mention his name. The man would have refused charity and the
minister, in all the personnel of bustling employes, often useless, that
fill the ministry, had not a single place to give to this workman whose
chest was on fire and whose throat was choking.

"I will return and we will talk about him," he said to Ramel, as he
arose, indicating Garnier by a nod. "Do not tell him who I am. On my
word, I should be ashamed--Poor devil!"

"Multiply him by three or four hundred thousand, and be a statesman,"
said Ramel.

Vaudrey bowed to the workman, who rose quickly and returned his salute
with timid eagerness, and the minister went rapidly down the stairs of
the little house and jumped into his carriage, making haste to get
away.

He bore with him a feeling akin to remorse, and in all sincerity, for he
still heard ringing in his ears, the poor consumptive's voice saying:

"What is it to me, who am suffering, whether Vaudrey or Pichereau be
minister?"

On reaching Place Beauvau, he found a despatch requesting his immediate
presence at the Elysee. At the Palace he received information that
surprised him like a thunderbolt. Monsieur Collard--of Nantes--had just
been struck down by apoplexy in the corridors of the ministry. The
Presiden