Lesable entered. He came now every morning for information in regard to the affairs which concerned him, his father-in-law no longer taking the trouble to send him instructions by the office boy.
While he was looking amongst the papers spread out on the table of the chief-clerk, Maze watched him from his corner, rubbing his hands, and Pitolet, who was rolling a cigarette, seemed full of mirth he could not control. He turned toward the copying-clerk:
“Say now, papa Savon, you have learned many things in your time, haven’t you?”
The old man, knowing they meant to tease him and to speak to him of his wife, did not reply.
Pitolet began: “You must have discovered the secret of begetting children, since you have had several.”
The old clerk raised his head. “You know, M. Pitolet, that I do like any joking on this subject. I have had the misfortune to marry an unworthy woman, and when I became convinced of her faithlessness I separated from her.”
Maze asked in an indifferent tone: “You have had several proofs of her infidelity, have you not?”
And the old man gravely replied: “I have.”
Pitolet put in again: “That has not prevented you from becoming the father of three or four children, I am told.”
The poor old man, growing very red, stammered: “You are trying to wound me, Monsieur Pitolet; but you will not succeed. My wife has had, in fact, three children. I have reason to believe that the first born is mine, but I deny the two others.”
Pitolet continued: “Everybody says, in truth, that the first one is yours. That is sufficient. It is very gratifying to have a child, very gratifying and very delightful. I wager Lesable there would be enchanted to have one—only one, like you.”
Cachelin had stopped writing. He did not laugh, although old Savon was his butt ordinarily, and he had poured out his stock of cruel jokes on the subject of the old clerk’s conjugal sorrows.
Lesable had collected his papers; but feeling himself attacked he wished to remain, held back by pride, confused and irritated, and wishing to know who had betrayed his secret.
Then the recollection of the confidence he had made to his chief came back to him, and he at once understood it was necessary to express his indignation if he did not wish to become the butt of the whole Ministry.
Boissel marched up and down the room, all the time tittering. He imitated the hoarse voices of the street criers, and bellowed: “The secret of begetting children, for ten centimes—two sous! Buy the secret of begetting children—revealed by Monsieur Savon, with many horrible details.” Everybody began to laugh except Lesable and his father-in-law, and Pitolet, turning toward the order-clerk, said: “What is the matter with you, Cachelin? You seem to have lost your habitual gaiety. One would think that you do not find it amusing to believe that old Savon could have had a child by his wife. I think it very funny. Everybody cannot do as much.”
Lesable pretended to be deeply absorbed in his papers and to hear nothing of what was going on about him, but he was as white as a ghost.
Boissel took up the strain in the same mocking voice: “The utility of heirs for getting an inheritance, ten centimes, two sous; who will buy?”
Then Maze, who thought this was very poor sort of wit, and who personally was enraged at Lesable having robbed him of the hope of a fortune which he had secretly cherished, said pointedly: “What is the matter with you, Lesable? You are very pale.”
Lesable raised his head and looked his colleague full in the face. He hesitated a second, while his lip trembled as he tried to formulate a bitter reply, but, unable to find the phrase he sought, he responded: “There is nothing the matter with me. I am only astonished that you display so much delicacy.”
Maze, who stood with his back to the fire and his hands under his coattails, replied, laughing: “One does the best one can, old man. We are like you, we do not always succeed—”
An explosion of laughter interrupted his words. Old Savon, who now vaguely comprehended that the clerks no longer addressed their railleries to him, looked around with his mouth gaping and his pen suspended in the air. And Cachelin waited, ready to come to blows with the first person who came in his way.
Lesable stammered: “I do not understand. In what have I not succeeded?”
The handsome Maze dropped the tails of his coat, and began to stroke his mustache. “I know that you ordinarily succeed in all that you undertake. I have done wrong to speak of you. Besides, we were speaking of old Savon’s children, and not of yours, as you haven’t any. Now since you succeed in all your enterprises, it is evident that, if you do not have children, it is because you do not want them.”
“What business is it of yours?” demanded Lesable sharply.
At this provoking tone Maze in his turn raised his voice: “Hold on! what do you take me for? Try to be polite, or I’ll settle you!”
Lesable trembled with anger, and losing all self-control, replied: “Monsieur Maze, I am not, like you, a great booby, or a great coxcomb. And I forbid you ever to speak to me again. I care neither for you nor your kind.” And he threw a look of defiance at Pitolet and Boissel.
Maze suddenly understood that true force is in calmness and irony, but wounded in his most vulnerable part—his vanity—he wished to strike his enemy to the very heart, and replied in the protecting tone of a benevolent well-wisher, but with rage
