as parvenus. Journalists were apt to persecute the tribe, who were
cousins, nephews, brothers, or other relatives of some minister, some
deputy, or an influential peer. The humbler clerks regarded them as a
means of influence.

The poor supernumerary, on the other hand, who is the only real
worker, is almost always the son of some former clerk's widow, who
lives on a meagre pension and sacrifices herself to support her son
until he can get a place as copying-clerk, and then dies leaving
him no nearer the head of his department than writer of deeds,
order-clerks, or, possibly, under-head-clerk. Living always in some locality
where rents are low, this humble supernumerary starts early from home.
For him the Eastern question relates only to the morning skies. To go
on foot and not get muddied, to save his clothes, and allow for the
time he may lose in standing under shelter during a shower, are the
preoccupations of his mind. The street pavements, the flaggings of the
quays and the boulevards, when first laid down, were a boon to him.
If, for some extraordinary reason, you happen to be in the streets of
Paris at half-past seven or eight o'clock of a winter's morning, and
see through piercing cold or fog or rain a timid, pale young man loom
up, cigarless, take notice of his pockets. You will be sure to see the
outline of a roll which his mother has given him to stay his stomach
between breakfast and dinner. The guilelessness of the supernumerary
does not last long. A youth enlightened by gleams by Parisian life
soon measures the frightful distance that separates him from the
head-clerkship, a distance which no mathematician, neither Archimedes, nor
Leibnitz, nor Laplace has ever reckoned, the distance that exists
between 0 and the figure 1. He begins to perceive the impossibilities
of his career; he hears talk of favoritism; he discovers the intrigues
of officials: he sees the questionable means by which his superiors