s they were
intellectual; such as yawning, filing his nails, talking about his
chiefs, groaning over the slowness of promotion, cooking a potato or a
sausage in the stove for his luncheon, reading the newspaper down to the
editor's signature, and advertisements in which some country cure
expresses his artless gratitude at being cured at last of an obstinate
disease. In recompense for this daily captivity, M. Violette received, at
the end of the month, a sum exactly sufficient to secure his household
soup and beef, with a few vegetables.

In order that his son might attain such a distinguished position, M.
Violette's father, a watch-maker in Chartres, had sacrificed everything,
and died penniless. The Silvio Pellico official, during these
exasperating and tiresome hours, sometimes regretted not having simply
succeeded his father. He could see himself, in imagination, in the light
little shop near the cathedral, with a magnifying-glass fixed in his eye,
ready to inspect some farmer's old "turnip," and suspended over his bench
thirty silver and gold watches left by farmers the week before, who would
profit by the next market-day to come and get them, all going together
with a merry tick. It may be questioned whether a trade as low as this
would have been fitting for a young man of education, a Bachelor of Arts,
crammed with Greek roots and quotations, able to prove the existence of
God, and to recite without hesitation the dates of the reigns of
Nabonassar and of Nabopolassar. This watch-maker, this simple artisan,
understood modern genius better. This modest shopkeeper acted according
to the democratic law and followed the instinct of a noble and wise
ambition. He made of his son--a sensible and intelligent boy--a machine
to copy documents, and spend his days guessing the conundrums in the
illustrated newspapers, which he read as easily as M. Ledrain would
decipher the cuneiform inscriptions on an Assyrian brick. Also--an
admirable result, which should rejoice the old watch-maker's shade--his
son had become a gentleman, a functionary, so splendidly remunerated by
the State that he was obliged to wear patches of cloth, as near like the
trousers as possible, on their seat; and his poor young wife, during her
life, had always been obliged, as rent-day drew near, to carry the
soup-ladle and six silver covers to the pawn-shop.

At all events, M. Violette was a widower now, and being busy all day was
very much embarrassed with