hich he did with a map. He knew every inch of Arcueil, Bievre,
Fontenay-aux-Roses, and Aulnay, so famous as the resort of great
writers, and hoped in time to know the whole western side of the country
around Paris. He intended to put his eldest son into a government office
and his second into the Ecole Polytechnique. He often said to the elder,
"When you have the honor to be a government clerk"; though he suspected
him of a preference for the exact sciences and did his best to repress
it, mentally resolved to abandon the lad to his own devices if he
persisted. When Rabourdin sent for him to come down and receive
instructions about some particular piece of work, Phellion gave all his
mind to it,--listening to every word the chief said, as a dilettante
listens to an air at the Opera. Silent in the office, with his feet in
the air resting on a wooden desk, and never moving them, he studied his
task conscientiously. His official letters were written with the utmost
gravity, and transmitted the commands of the minister in solemn phrases.
Monsieur Phellion's face was that of a pensive ram, with little color
and pitted by the small-pox; the lips were thick and the lower one
pendent; the eyes light-blue, and his figure above the common height.
Neat and clean as a master of history and geography in a young ladies'
school ought to be, he wore fine linen, a pleated shirt-frill, a black
cashmere waistcoat, left open and showing a pair of braces embroidered
by his daughter, a diamond in the bosom of his shirt, a black coat,
and blue trousers. In winter he added a nut-colored box-coat with
three capes, and carried a loaded stick, necessitated, he said, by the
profound solitude of the quarter in which he lived. He had given up
taking snuff, and referred to this reform as a striking example of the
empire a man could exercise over himself. Monsieur Phellion came slowly
up the stairs, for he was afraid of asthma, having what he called an
"adipose chest." He saluted Antoine with dignity.

The next to follow was a copying-clerk, who presented a strange contrast
to the virtuous Phellion. Vimeux was a young man of twenty-five, with
a salary of fifteen hundred francs, well-made and graceful, with a
romantic face, and eyes, hair, beard, and eyebrows as black as jet, fine
teeth, charming hands, and wearing a moustache so carefully trimmed
that he seemed to have made it the business and occupation of his life.
Vimeux had such aptitude for work th