o'clock in the evening those of the Maison Camusot, in the rue des
Bourdonnais. He thus earned three thousand francs a year, counting his
salary from the government. In a few months his term of service would
be up, when he would retire on a pension; he therefore showed the
utmost indifference to the political intrigues of the bureaus. Like
his elder brother, to whom retirement from active service had proved a
fatal blow, he would probably grow an old man when he could no longer
come from his home to the ministry, sit in the same chair and copy a
certain number of pages. Poiret's eyes were dim, his glance weak and
lifeless, his skin discolored and wrinkled, gray in tone and speckled
with bluish dots; his nose flat, his lips drawn inward to the mouth,
where a few defective teeth still lingered. His gray hair, flattened
to the head by the pressure of his hat, gave him the look of an
ecclesiastic,--a resemblance he would scarcely have liked, for he
hated priests and clergy, though he could give no reasons for his
anti-religious views. This antipathy, however, did not prevent him
from being extremely attached to whatever administration happened to
be in power. He never buttoned his old green coat, even on the coldest
days, and he always wore shoes with ties, and black trousers.

No human life was ever lived so thoroughly by rule. Poiret kept
all his receipted bills, even the most trifling, and all his
account-books, wrapped in old shirts and put away according to their
respective years from the time of his entrance at the ministry. Rough
copies of his letters were dated and put away in a box, ticketed "My
Correspondence." He dined at the same restaurant (the Sucking Calf in
the place du Chatelet), and sat in the same place, which the waiters
kept for him. He never gave five minutes more time to the shop in the
rue Saint Antoine than justly belonged to it, and at half-past eight
precisely he reached the Cafe David, where he breakfasted and remained