e cornice]. "Monsieur, I don't follow you."

Bixiou [getting off the fourth button]. "I wanted to prove to you,
monsieur, that nothing is simple; but above all--and what I am going to
say is intended for philosophers--I wish (if you'll allow me to misquote
a saying of Louis XVIII.),--I wish to make you see that definitions lead
to muddles."

Poiret [wiping his forehead]. "Excuse me, I am sick at my stomach"
[tries to button his coat]. "Ah! you have cut off all my buttons!"

Bixiou. "But the point is, /do you understand me/?"

Poiret [angrily]. "Yes, monsieur, I do; I understand that you have been
playing me a shameful trick and twisting off my buttons while I have
been standing here unconscious of it."

Bixiou [solemnly]. "Old man, you are mistaken! I wished to stamp upon
your brain the clearest possible image of constitutional government"
[all the clerks look at Bixiou; Poiret, stupefied, gazes at him
uneasily], "and also to keep my word to you. In so doing I employed
the parabolical method of savages. Listen and comprehend: While the
ministers start discussions in the Chambers that are just about
as useful and as conclusive as the one we are engaged in, the
administration cuts the buttons off the tax-payers."

All. "Bravo, Bixiou!"

Poiret [who comprehends]. "I don't regret my buttons."

Bixiou. "I shall follow Minard's example; I won't pocket such a
paltry salary as mine any longer; I shall deprive the government of my
co-operation." [Departs amid general laughter.]

Another scene was taking place in the minister's reception-room, more
instructive than the one we have just related, because it shows how
great ideas are allowed to perish in the higher regions of State
affairs, and in what way statesmen console themselves.

Des Lupeaulx was presenting the new director, Monsieur Baudoyer, to the
minister. A number of persons were assembled in the salon,--two or three
ministerial deputies, a few men of influence, and Monsieur Clergeot
(whose division was now merged with La Billardiere's under Baudoyer's
direction), to whom the minister was promising an honorable pension.
After a few general remarks, the great event of the day was brought up.

A deputy. "So you lose Rabourdin?"

Des Lupeaulx. "He has resigned."

Clergeot. "They say he wanted to reform the administration."

The Minister [looking at the deputies]. "Salaries are not really in
proportion to the exigencies of the civil service."

De la Briere.