s into this foolish head,
Rabourdin had finally given up the attempt as hopeless. Adolphe (his
family name was Adolphe) had lately economized on dinners and lived
entirely on bread and water, to buy a pair of spurs and a riding-whip.
Jokes at the expense of this starving Amadis were made only in the
spirit of mischievous fun which creates vaudevilles, for he was really a
kind-hearted fellow and a good comrade, who harmed no one but himself.
A standing joke in the two bureaus was the question whether he wore
corsets, and bets depended on it. Vimeux was originally appointed to
Baudoyer's bureau, but he manoeuvred to get himself transferred to
Rabourdin's, on account of Baudoyer's extreme severity in relation to
what were called "the English,"--a name given by the government clerks
to their creditors. "English day" means the day on which the government
offices are thrown open to the public. Certain then of finding their
delinquent debtors, the creditors swarm in and torment them, asking
when they intend to pay, and threatening to attach their salaries. The
implacable Baudoyer compelled the clerks to remain at their desks and
endure this torture. "It was their place not to make debts," he said;
and he considered his severity as a duty which he owed to the public
weal. Rabourdin, on the contrary, protected the clerks against their
creditors, and turned the latter away, saying that the government
bureaus were open for public business, not private. Much ridicule
pursued Vimeux in both bureaus when the clank of his spurs resounded in
the corridors and on the staircases. The wag of the ministry, Bixiou,
sent round a paper, headed by a caricature of his victim on a pasteboard
horse, asking for subscriptions to buy him a live charger. Monsieur
Baudoyer was down for a bale of hay taken from his own forage allowance,
and each of the clerks wrote his little epigram; Vimeux himself,
good-natured fellow that he was, subscribed under the name of "Miss
Fairfax."

Handsome clerks of the Vimeux style have their salaries on which to
live, and their good looks by which to make their fortune. Devoted to
masked balls during the carnival, they seek their luck there, though it
often escapes them. Many end the weary round by marrying milliners, or
old women,--sometimes, however, young ones who are charmed with their
handsome persons, and with whom they set up a romance illustrated with
stupid love letters, which, nevertheless, seem to answer thei