the more, perhaps, because he hid his
ambitions under a show of indifference. Apparently content with his lot
and liking work, he found every one, even the chiefs, ready to protect
his brave career. During the last few weeks Madame Colleville had made
an evident change in the household, and seemed to be taking to piety.
This gave rise to a vague report in the bureaus that she thought of
securing some more powerful influence than that of Francois Keller, the
famous orator, who had been one of her chief adorers, but who, so far,
had failed to obtain a better place for her husband. Flavie had, about
this time--and it was one of her mistakes--turned for help to des
Lupeaulx.

Colleville had a passion for reading the horoscopes of famous men in
the anagram of their names. He passed whole months in decomposing
and recomposing words and fitting them to new meanings. "Un Corse la
finira," found within the words, "Revolution Francaise"; "Eh, c'est
large nez," in "Charles Genest," an abbe at the court of Louis XIV.,
whose huge nose is recorded by Saint-Simon as the delight of the Duc de
Bourgogne (the exigencies of this last anagram required the substitution
of a z for an s),--were a never-ending marvel to Colleville. Raising
the anagram to the height of a science, he declared that the destiny of
every man was written in the words or phrase given by the transposition
of the letters of his names and titles; and his patriotism struggled
hard to suppress the fact--signal evidence for his theory--that in
Horatio Nelson, "honor est a Nilo." Ever since the accession of Charles
X., he had bestowed much thought on the king's anagram. Thuillier, who
was fond of making puns, declared that an anagram was nothing more than
a pun on letters. The sight of Colleville, a man of real feeling, bound
almost indissolubly to Thuillier, the model of an egoist, presented a
difficult problem to the mind of an observer. The clerks in the offices
explained it by saying, "Thuillier is rich, and the Colleville household
costly." This friendship, however, consolidated by time, was based on
feelings and on facts which naturally explained it; an account of which
may be found elsewhere (see "Les Petits Bourgeois"). We may remark in
passing that though Madame Colleville was well known in the bureaus, the
existence of Madame Thuillier was almost unknown there. Colleville,
an active man, burdened with a family of children, was fat, round, and
jolly, whereas Thuill