inister and, hurriedly taking to flight, left him laughing at the trick
which he had played me.

The incident was noised about, could not help being so, for the
peristyle of a railway station keeps no secrets. I then learned to what
annoyances the shadow of the great exposes us. I was looked upon as an
influential person, having the favor of the gods at my disposal. Place
hunters and canvassers tormented me. One wanted a license to sell
tobacco and stamps, another a scholarship for his son, another an
increase of his pension. I had only to ask and I should obtain, said
they.

O simple people, what an illusion was yours! You could not have hit upon
a worse intermediary. I figuring as a postulant! I have many faults,
I admit, but that is certainly not one of them. I got rid of the
importunate people as best I could, though they were utterly unable
to fathom my reserve. What would they have said had they known of the
minister's offers with regard to my laboratory and my jesting reply, in
which I asked for a crocodile skin to hang from my ceiling! They would
have taken me for an idiot.

Six months elapsed; and I received a letter summoning me to call upon
the minister at his office. I suspected a proposal to promote me to a
more important grammar school and wrote begging that I might be left
where I was, among my vats and my insects. A second letter arrived,
more pressing than the first and signed by the minister's own hand. This
letter said: 'Come at once, or I shall send my gendarmes to fetch you.'

There was no way out of it. Twenty-four hours later, I was in M. Duruy's
room. He welcomed me with exquisite cordiality, gave me his hand and,
taking up a number of the Moniteur: 'Read that,' he said. 'You refused
my chemical apparatus; but you won't refuse this.

I looked at the line to which his finger pointed. I read my name in the
list of the Legion of Honor. Quite stupid with surprise, I stammered the
first words of thanks that entered my head.

'Come here,' said he, 'and let me give you the accolade. I will be your
sponsor. You will like the ceremony all the better if it is held in
private, between you and me: I know you!'

He pinned the red ribbon to my coat, kissed me on both cheeks, made me
telegraph the great event to my family. What a morning, spent with that
good man!

I well know the vanity of decorative ribbonry and tinware, especially
when, as too often happens, intrigue degrades the honor conferred; bu