At that moment Rabourdin was scolding poor Sebastien, the only human
being who was in the secret of his immense labors. The youth copied
and recopied the famous "statement," written on a hundred and fifty
folio sheets, besides the corroborative documents, and the summing up
(contained in one page), with the estimates bracketed, the captions in
a running hand, and the sub-titles in a round one. Full of enthusiasm,
in spite of his merely mechanical participation in the great idea, the
lad of twenty would rewrite whole pages for a single blot, and made it
his glory to touch up the writing, regarding it as the element of a
noble undertaking. Sebastien had that afternoon committed the great
imprudence of carrying into the general office, for the purpose of
copying, a paper which contained the most dangerous facts to make
known prematurely, namely, a memorandum relating to the officials in
the central offices of all ministries, with facts concerning their
fortunes, actual and prospective, together with the individual
enterprises of each outside of his government employment.

All government clerks in Paris who are not endowed, like Rabourdin,
with patriotic ambition or other marked capacity, usually add the
profits of some industry to the salary of their office, in order to
eke out a living. A number do as Monsieur Saillard did,--put their
money into a business carried on by others, and spend their evenings
in keeping the books of their associates. Many clerks are married to
milliners, licensed tobacco dealers, women who have charge of the
public lotteries or reading-rooms. Some, like the husband of Madame
Colleville, Celestine's rival, play in the orchestra of a theatre;
others like du Bruel, write vaudeville, comic operas, melodramas, or
act as prompters behind the scenes. We may mention among them Messrs.
Planard, Sewrin, etc. Pigault-Lebrun, Piis, Duvicquet, in their day,