ust. "Here, go
and buy it for me."

The waiter hastened to do so, and brought back the paper. Duroy began to
read his article, and several times said aloud: "Very good, very well
put," to attract the attention of his neighbors, and inspire them with
the wish to know what there was in this sheet. Then, on going away, he
left it on the table. The master of the place, noticing this, called him
back, saying: "Sir, sir, you are forgetting your paper."

And Duroy replied: "I will leave it to you. I have finished with it.
There is a very interesting article in it this morning."

He did not indicate the article, but he noticed as he went away one of
his neighbors take the _Vie Francaise_ up from the table on which he had
left it.

He thought: "What shall I do now?" And he decided to go to his office,
take his month's salary, and tender his resignation. He felt a thrill of
anticipatory pleasure at the thought of the faces that would be pulled
up by the chief of his room and his colleagues. The notion of the
bewilderment of the chief above all charmed him.

He walked slowly, so as not to get there too early, the cashier's office
not opening before ten o'clock.

His office was a large, gloomy room, in which gas had to be kept burning
almost all day long in winter. It looked into a narrow court-yard, with
other offices on the further side of it. There were eight clerks there,
besides a sub-chief hidden behind a screen in one corner.

Duroy first went to get the hundred and eighteen francs twenty-five
centimes enclosed in a yellow envelope, and placed in the drawer of the
clerk entrusted with such payments, and then, with a conquering air,
entered the large room in which he had already spent so many days.

As soon as he came in the sub-chief, Monsieur Potel, called out to him:
"Ah! it is you, Monsieur Duroy? The chief has already asked for you
several times. You know that he will not allow anyone to plead illness
two days running without a doctor's certificate."

Duroy, who was standing in the middle of the room preparing his
sensational effect, replied in a loud voice:

"I don't care a damn whether he does or not."

There was a movement of stupefaction among the clerks, and Monsieur
Potel's features showed affrightedly over the screen which shut him up
as in a box. He barricaded himself behind it for fear of draughts, for
he was rheumatic, but had pierced a couple of holes through the paper to
keep an eye on his staf