Although it was not yet ten o'clock, the employees were pouring in like waves through the great doorway of the Ministry of Marine, having come in haste from every corner of Paris, for the first of the year was approaching, the time for renewed zeal—and for promotions. A noise of hurrying footsteps filled the vast building, which was as tortuous as a labyrinth, and honeycombed with inextricable passages, pierced by innumerable doors opening into the various offices. Each one entered his particular room, pressed the hands of his colleagues who had already arrived, threw off his coat, put on his office jacket, and seated himself before the table, where a pile of papers awaited him. Then they went for news into the neighbouring offices. They asked whether their chief had arrived, if he was in an agreeable humour, and if the day's mail was a heavy one.
The clerk in charge of "general matter," M. César Cachelin, an old non-commissioned officer of the marine infantry, who had become chief-clerk by priority of office, registered in a big book all the documents as they were brought in by the messenger. Opposite him the copying-clerk, old father Savon, a stupid old fellow, celebrated throughout the whole ministry for his conjugal misfortunes, copied in a slow hand a dispatch from the chief, sitting with his body held sidewise and his eyes askew, in the stiff attitude of the careful copyist.
M. Cachelin, a big man, whose short, white hair stood up like a brush on his head, talked all the time while performing his daily work: "Thirty-two dispatches from Toulon. That port gives us as much as any four others put together."
Then he asked the old man Savon the question he put to him every morning:
"Well, father Savon, how is Madame?"
The old man, without stopping his work, replied: "You know very well. Monsieur Cachelin, that subject is a most painful one to me."
Then the chief clerk laughed as he laughed every day at hearing the same phrase.
The door opened and M. Maze entered. He was a handsome, dark young fellow dressed with an exaggerated elegance, who thought his position beneath his dignity, and his person and manners above his position. He wore large rings, a heavy gold watch chain, a monocle (which he discarded while at work), and he made a frequent movement of his wrists in order to bring into view his cuffs ornamented with great shining buttons.
At the door he asked: "Much work to-day?" M. Cachelin replied: "It is always Toulon which keeps sending in. One can easily see that the first of the year is at hand, from the way they are hustling down there."
But another employee, a great joker, always in high spirits, appeared in his turn and said laughing:
"We are not hustling at all, are we?" Then taking out his watch he added: "Seven minutes to ten and every man at his post! By George, what do you think of that? and I'll wager anything that his Dignity M. Lesable arrived at nine o'clock—at the same hour as our illustrious chief."
The chief-clerk ceased writing, put his pen behind his ear, and leaning his elbow on the desk said: "Oh! there is a man for you! If he does not succeed, it will not be for want of trying."
M. Pitolet, seating himself on the corner of the table and swinging his leg, replied:
"But he will succeed, papa Cachelin; he will succeed, you may be sure. I will bet you twenty francs to a sou that he will be chief within ten years."
M. Maze, who rolled a cigarette while warming his calves before the fire, said:
"Pshaw! for my part I would rather remain all my life on a salary of twenty-four hundred francs than wear myself to a skeleton the way he is doing."
Pitolet turned on his heels and said in a bantering tone: "But that does not prevent you, my dear fellow, from being here on this twentieth of December before ten o'clock."
The other shrugged his shoulders with an air of indifference. "Hang it all! I do not want everybody to walk over my head, either! Since you come here to see the sun rise, I am going to do it, too, however much I may deplore your officiousness. From doing that to calling the chief 'dear master,' as Lesable does, and staying until half past six and then carrying work home with you is a long way. Besides, I am in society and I have other demands upon my time."
M. Cachelin had ceased his registering and begun to dream, his eyes fixed on vacancy. At last he asked: "Do you believe that he will get an increase again this year?"
Pitolet cried: "I will bet you ten to one he gets it. He is not wearing himself out for nothing."
And so they talked of the eternal question of promotion which for a month had excited the whole hive of clerks from the ground floor to the roof.
They calculated chances, computed figures, compared their various claims to promotion, and waxed indignant over former injustices. These discussions lasted from morning until evening, and the next day were begun all over again, with the same reasons, the same arguments, the same words.
A new clerk entered, a little, pale, sick-looking man, M. Boissel, who lived as in a romance of Alexandre Dumas, père. Everything with him was an extraordinary adventure, and he recounted every morning to his friend Pitolet his strange encounters of the previous evening, imaginary scenes enacted in his house, strange cries uttered in the street which caused him to open his window at half past three in the morning. Every day he had separated combatants, stopped runaway horses, rescued women from danger; and although of a deplorably weak constitution he talked unceasingly, in a slow and satisfied tone, of exploits accomplished by his strong arm.
As soon as he understood that they were talking of Lesable he declared: "Some day I will give that little pup his deserts; and if he ever walks over my head. I'll give him something that will prevent him from trying again."
Maze, continuing to smoke, sneered: "You would do well, then, to begin at once, for I hear on good authority that you are to be set aside this year for Lesable."
Boissel raised his hand. "I swear that if—" The door opened once more, and a dapper little man wearing the side-whiskers of an officer of marine or lawyer, and a high, stiff collar, who spoke his words rapidly as though he could not take the time to finish what he had to say, entered quickly with a preoccupied manner. He shook hands all around with the air of a man who had no leisure for dallying, and approaching the chief-clerk said: "My dear Cachelin, will you give me the Chapelou papers, rope yarn, Toulon A. T. V., 1875?"
The clerk rose, reached for a portfolio above his head, took out a package of sealed documents wrapped in blue linen, and presenting them said: "There, M. Lesable; you remember the chief took three dispatches from their package yesterday."
"Yes, I have them. Thanks," and the young man went out hurriedly.
Hardly had he gone when Maze ejaculated:
"Well! what an air! One would swear he was already chief."
And Pitolet replied: "Patience, patience; he will be before any of us."
M. Cachelin had not resumed his writing. A fixed thought seemed to have taken possession of him. At last he said: "He has a fine future, that boy!"
But Maze murmured in a disdainful tone: "For those who think the ministry is a career—yes. For the others it is a little—"
Pitolet interrupted him: "Perhaps you intend to become ambassador?"
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............