The other made an impatient gesture. "It is not a question of me. I can
take care of myself. That has nothing to do with the fact that the
position of the head of a department will never be anything very much."
Father Savon, the copyist, had never ceased his work. But for some
little time he had been dipping his pen in the inkstand, then wiping it
vigorously on the sponge which stood in a little glass of water on his
desk, without being able to trace a letter. The black liquid slipped along
the point of the metal and fell in round spots on the paper. The good man,
driven to despair as sheet after sheet of paper was thus spoiled, said in
a deep and sorrowful voice:
"Here is more adulterated ink!"
A shout of laughter came from every mouth. Cachelin shook the table with
his stomach. Maze bent double, as though he were going up the chimney
backward. Pitolet stamped and roared and waved his hands in the air, and
even Boissel was almost suffocated, although he generally looked at
these things on the tragic rather than the comic side.
But father Savon, wiping his pen on the tail of his overcoat, said:
"There is nothing to laugh at. I have to go over my whole work two or
three times."
He took from his box another sheet of paper, laid his wax sheet over
it, and commenced again at the beginning: "Monsieur le Ministre and dear
Colleague--" The pen now held the ink and traced the letters neatly. The
old man settled down into his oblique posture and continued his copy.
The others had not stopped laughing. They were fairly choking. For six
months they had played the same game on the poor old fellow, who had never
detected it. It consisted in pouring several drops of oil on the damp
sponge used for wiping pens. The metal, thus becoming coated with liquid
grease, would not take the ink, and the perplexed copying-clerk would pass
hours in using boxes of pens and bottles of ink, and finally declare that
the supplies of the department were becoming perfectly worthless.
Then the jokers would torment the old man in other ways. They put
gunpowder in his tobacco, pour drugs into his drinking water, and made
him believe that, since the Commune, the majority of articles for general
use had been adulterated by the socialists, to put the government in the
wrong and bring about a revolution. He had conceived a terrible hatred
against the anarchists, whom he believed to be concealed everywhere, and
had a mysterious fear of an unknown woman--veiled and formidable.
A sharp ring of the bell sounded in the corridor. They well knew the
emphatic ring of their chief, M. Torchebeuf, and each one sprang toward
the door that he might regain his own compartment.
Cachelin returned to his work. Then he laid down his pen again, and took
his head in his hands and began to think.
He turned over in his mind an idea which had tormented him for some
time. An old non-commissioned officer of the marine infantry, retired
after receiving three wounds, one at Senegal and two at Cochin China, who
had been given a position in the ministry as an exceptional favour, he had
had to endure many miseries, many hardships, and many griefs in his long
career as an insignificant subordinate. He considered authority, official
authority, as the finest thing in the world. The head of a Department
seemed to him an exceptional being, living in a higher sphere; and the
employee of whom he heard it said: "He is a sharp one; he will get there
yet," appeared to him of another race, another nature, than himself.
He had therefore for his colleague Lesable a high respect which
approached veneration, and he cherished the secret desire, which was never
absent from his mind, to have him marry his daughter.
She would be rich one day, very rich. This was known throughout the
entire ministry, for his sister. Mlle Cachelin, possessed a million, a
clear, cool million, acquired through love, they said, but purified
by belated piety.
This ancient spinster, who had led a gay life in her youth, had retired
with five hundred thousand francs, which she had more than doubled in
eighteen years, thanks to her ferocious economy and more than frugal
habits. She had lived for a long time with her brother, who was a widower
with one daughter, Coralie; but she did not contribute in the slightest
degree to the expenses of the house, guarding and accumulating her gold,
and always repeating to Cachelin: "It makes no difference, since it is all
for your daughter; but marry her quickly, for I want to see my little
nephews around me. It is she who will give me the joy of embracing
a child of our blood."
This was well understood at the office, and suitors were not lacking
for Coralie's hand. It was said that Maze himself, the handsome Maze, the
lion of the bureau, hovered around father Cachelin with a palpable intent.
But the former sergeant, who had roamed through all latitudes, wanted a
young man with a future, a young man who would be chief, and who would be
able to make some return to him, the old clerk. Lesable suited him to a
nicety, and he cast about in his mind for a means of attaching him to
himself.
All of a sudden he sat upright, striking his hands together. He had
found it. He well understood the weakness of each one of his colleagues.
Lesable could be approached only through his vanity, his professional
vanity. He would go to him and demand his protection as one goes to a
senator or a deputy--as one goes to a high personage.
Not having had any promotion for five years, Cachelin considered himself
as certain to obtain one this year. He would make it appear then that
he owed it to Lesable, and would invite him to dinner as a means of
thanking him.
As soon as his project was conceived he began to put it into execution.
He took off his office jacket, put on his coat, and, gathering up all the
registered papers which concerned the services of his colleague, he betook
himself to the office which Lesable occupied all alone, by special favour,
because of his zeal and the importance of his functions.
The young man was writing at a great table, covered with bundles of
documents and loose papers numbered with red or blue figures.
As soon as he saw the chief-clerk enter, he said in a familiar tone,
which also betokened consideration: "Well, my dear fellow, do you bring
me a lot of business?"
"Yes, a good deal. And then I want to speak to you."
"Sit down, my friend; I am listening."
Cachelin seated himself, coughed, put on a troubled look, and finally
said in a despondent tone:
"This is what brings me here, Monsieur Lesable. I will not beat about
the bush. I will be frank like an old soldier. I have come to demand a
service of you."
"What is it?"
"In few words, I wish very much to be promoted this year. I have nobody
to help me, and I have thought of you."
Lesable reddened somewhat. He was surprised, flattered, and filled with
a pleased confusion. However, he replied:
"But I am nobody here, my friend. I am much less than you, who are going
to be principal clerk. I can do nothing. Believe me that if--"
Cachelin cut him short with respectful brusqueness: "Oh, nonsense. You
have the ear of the chief, and if you speak a word for me I shall get it.
Remember that in eighteen months I shall have the right to retire, and I
shall be just five hundred francs to the bad if I obtain nothing on the
first of January. I know very well that they say: 'Cachelin is all right;
his sister has a million.' It is true enough that my sister has a million,
but she doesn't give any of it away. It is also true that her fortune
is for my daughter, but my daughter and I are two different persons. I
shall be in a nice fix if, when my daughter and my son-in-law are rolling
in their carriage, I have nothing to eat. You see my position, do you not?"
Lesable agreed. "It is true--what you say is very true. Your son-in-law
may not be well disposed toward you. Besides, one is always more at ease
when owing nothing to anybody. Well, I promise you I shall do my best; I
shall speak to the chief, place the case before him, and shall insist if
it be necessary. Count on me!"
Cachelin rose, took the hands of his colleague, and pressing them hard
while he shook them in military fashion, stammered: "Thank you, thank
you; believe me, if ever I have the opportunity--if I can ever--" He
stopped, not being able to finish what he had begun, and went away making
the corridor resound with the rhythmical tread of an old trooper.
But he heard from afar the sharp ring of a bell and he began to run. He
knew that ring. It was the chief, M. Torchebeuf, who wanted him.
Eight days later Cachelin found one morning on his desk a sealed
letter, which contained the following:
"My dear Colleague: I am happy to announce to you that the minister,
at the instance of our director and our chief, yesterday signed your
nomination to the position of principal clerk. You will receive tomorrow
your official notification. Until then you know nothing, you understand?
Yours ever,