ens to pay him the
customary indemnity. Moreover, he explains the matter to the minister's
wife, who never fails to draw freely upon the fund, and sometimes takes
all, for the "outfit" is looked upon as a household affair. The cashier
then proceeds to turn a compliment, and to slip in a few politic
phrases: "If his Excellency would deign to retain him; if, satisfied
with his purely mechanical services, he would," etc. As a man who brings
twenty-five thousand francs is always a worthy official, the cashier is
sure not to leave without his confirmation to the post from which he has
seen a succession of ministers come and go during a period of, perhaps,
twenty-five years. His next step is to place himself at the orders of
Madame; he brings the monthly thirteen thousand francs whenever wanted;
he advances or delays the payment as requested, and thus manages to
obtain, as they said in the monasteries, a voice in the chapter.

Formerly book-keeper at the Treasury, when that establishment kept its
books by double entry, the Sieur Saillard was compensated for the loss
of that position by his appointment as cashier of a ministry. He was a
bulky, fat man, very strong in the matter of book-keeping, and very weak
in everything else; round as a round O, simple as how-do-you-do,--a man
who came to his office with measured steps, like those of an elephant,
and returned with the same measured tread to the place Royale, where he
lived on the ground-floor of an old mansion belonging to him. He usually
had a companion on the way in the person of Monsieur Isidore Baudoyer,
head of a bureau in Monsieur de la Billardiere's division, consequently
one of Rabourdin's colleagues. Baudoyer was married to Elisabeth
Saillard, the cashier's only daughter, and had hired, very naturally,
the apartments above those of his father-in-law. No one at the ministry
had the slightest doubt that Saillard was a blockhead, but neither
had any one ever found out how far his stupidity could go; it was too
compact to be examined; it did not ring hollow; it absorbed everything
and gave nothing out. Bixiou (a clerk of whom more anon) caricatured the
cashier by drawing a head in a wig at the top of an egg, and two little
legs at the other end, with this inscription: "Born to pay out and take
in without blundering. A little less luck, and he might have been lackey
to the bank of France; a little more ambition, and he could have been
honorably discharged."

At the mome