he dreamed of doing to promote his son-in-law's appointment in La
Billardiere's place was to say a word to his Excellency's wife when he
took her the month's salary.

"Well, Saillard, you look as if you had lost all your friends! Do
speak; do, pray, tell us something," cried his wife when he came back
into the room.

Saillard, after making a little sign to his daughter, turned on his
heel to keep himself from talking politics before strangers. When
Monsieur Mitral and the vicar had departed, Saillard rolled back the
card-table and sat down in an armchair in the attitude he always
assumed when about to tell some office-gossip,--a series of movements
which answered the purpose of the three knocks given at the
Theatre-Francais. After binding his wife, daughter, and son-in-law to
the deepest secrecy,--for, however petty the gossip, their places, as
he thought, depended on their discretion,--he related the
incomprehensible enigma of the resignation of a deputy, the very
legitimate desire of the general-secretary to get elected to the
place, and the secret opposition of the minister to this wish of a man
who was one of his firmest supporters and most zealous workers. This,
of course, brought down an avalanche of suppositions, flooded with the
sapient arguments of the two officials, who sent back and forth to
each other a wearisome flood of nonsense. Elisabeth quietly asked
three questions:--

"If Monsieur des Lupeaulx is on our side, will Monsieur Baudoyer be
appointed in Monsieur de la Billardiere's place?"

"Heavens! I should think so," cried the cashier.