smoking his
pipe tranquilly, and at times reviewing the pages of his life, just as
he might have fingered the leaves of a portfolio of engravings, thinking
when he chanced to meet some notable person of the day who shunned him
or merely saluted him curtly and stiffly:

"You were not so proud when you came to ask me to certify your pay-slip
for the cashier of the journal."

Ramel had always greatly esteemed Sulpice Vaudrey. This man seemed to
him to be more refined and less forgetful than others. Vaudrey had never
"posed." As a minister, he recalled with deep emotion the period of his
struggles. Ramel, the former manager of the _Nation Francaise_, was one
of the objects of his affection and admiration. He would have been
delighted to snatch this man from his seclusion and place him in the
first rank, to make this sexagenarian who had created and moulded so
many others, noteworthy by a sudden stroke.

Amid the tumultuous throng, and feeling overjoyed to find once more one
whom he could trust, to whom he could abandon himself entirely, he
repeated to him in all sincerity:

"Come, Ramel! Would you consent to be my secretary general?"

"No! your Excellency," Ramel answered, as a kindly smile played beneath
his white moustaches.

"To oblige me?--To help me?"

"No--Why, I am an egotist, my dear Vaudrey. Truly, that would make me
too jealous. Take Navarrot," he added, as he pointed to a fashionable
man, elegantly cravatted, carrying his head high, who had just greeted
Vaudrey, using the same phrase eight times: "My dear minister--your
Excellency--my minister--"

"Navarrot?"

"He appears to be very much attached to you!"

"You are very wicked, Ramel. He holds to the office and not to the man.
He is not the friend of the minister, but of ministers. He is one of the
ordinary touters of the ministry. He applauds everything that their
Excellencies choose to say."

"Oh! I know those touters," said the old journalist. "When a minister is
in power, they cheer him to the echo; when he is down, they belabor
him."

Vaudrey looked at him and laughingly said: "Begone, journalist!"

"But at any rate,"--and here he extended his hand to Ramel,--"you will
see me this evening?"

"Certainly."

"And you still live at--?"

"Rue Boursault, Boulevard des Batignolles."

"Till then, my dear Ramel! If occasion require, you will not refuse to
give me your advice?"

"Nor my devotion. But without office, remember without office,"