granted to each minister taking charge of a public department an
indemnity, called an "outfit." It costs, alas, as much to enter on the
duties of a minister as to retire from them; indeed, the entrance
involves expenses of all kinds which it is quite impossible to
inventory. This indemnity amounted to the pretty little sum of
twenty-five thousand francs. When the appointment of a new minister
was gazetted in the "Moniteur," and the greater or lesser officials,
clustering round the stoves or before the fireplaces and shaking in
their shoes, asked themselves: "What will he do? will he increase the
number of clerks? will he dismiss two to make room for three?" the
cashier tranquilly took out twenty-five clean bank-bills and pinned
them together with a satisfied expression on his beadle face. The next
day he mounted the private staircase and had himself ushered into the
minister's presence by the lackeys, who considered the money and the
keeper of money, the contents and the container, the idea and the
form, as one and the same power. The cashier caught the ministerial
pair at the dawn of official delight, when the newly appointed
statesman is benign and affable. To the minister's inquiry as to what
brings him there, he replies with the bank-notes,--informing his
Excellency that he hastens to pay him the customary indemnity.
Moreover, he explains the matter to the minister's wife, who never
fails to draw freely upon the fund, and sometimes takes all, for the
"outfit" is looked upon as a household affair. The cashier then
proceeds to turn a compliment, and to slip in a few politic phrases:
"If his Excellency would deign to retain him; if, satisfied with his
purely mechanical services, he would," etc. As a man who brings
twenty-five thousand francs is always a worthy official, the cashier
is sure not to leave without his confirmation to the post from which
he has seen a succession of ministers come and go during a period of,
perhaps, twenty-five years. His next step is to place himself at the