"Jupiter! How stupid Chalamel is when he likes!"

"Deuce take it! Tell me where you go, and I'll tell you who you are!"

"Beautiful!"

"As for me, I think it is superstition which makes our governor more and
more hoggish."

"And, perhaps, it is as a penitence that he gives us forty sous a day
for our breakfast."

"He must, indeed, have taken leave of his senses."

"Or be ill."

"I have thought him very much bewildered these many days past."

"It is not that we see so much of him. He who, for our misery, was in
his study at sunrise, and always at our backs, is now two days without
even poking his nose into the office."

"That gives the head clerk so much to do."

"And we are obliged to die of hunger waiting for him this morning."

"What a change in the office!"

"How poor Germain would be astonished if any one told him, 'Only think,
old fellow, of the governor giving us forty sous for our breakfast.'
'Pooh! Impossible!' 'Quite possible! And I, Chalamel, announce the fact
in my own proper person.' 'What, you want to make me laugh?' 'Yes. Well,
this is the way it came about. For the two or three days which followed
the death of Madame Seraphin we had no breakfast at all; and, in one
respect, that was an improvement, because it was less nasty, but, in
another, our refection cost us money. Still we were patient, saying,
"The governor has no servant or housekeeper; as soon as he gets one we
shall resume the filthy paste gruel." No, by no means, my dear Germain;
the governor has a servant, and yet our breakfast continued buried in
the wave of oblivion. Then I was appointed as a deputation to inform the
governor of the griefs of our stomachs. He was with the chief clerk. "I
will not feed you any longer in the morning," he replied, in his harsh
tone, and as if thinking of something else; "my servant has no time to
prepare your breakfast." "But, sir, it was agreed that you should find
us in breakfasts." "Well, send for your breakfasts from some house, and
I will pay for it. How much is sufficient,--forty sous each?" he added;
all the time evidently thinking of something else, and saying forty sous
as he would say twenty sous or a hundred sous. "Yes, sir, forty sous
will be sufficient," cried I, catching the ball at the bound. "Be it so;
the head clerk will pay you and settle with me." And so saying, the
governor respectfully slammed the door in my face.' You must own,
messieurs, that Germain would be most extrao