_procureur-du-roi_ at Versailles, a sure step to a post in Paris.

The confident air of this little Vinet, and the sort of assumption
which the certainty of making his way gave to him, was all the more
irritating to Frederic Marest, his superior, because a biting wit
accompanied the rather undisciplined habits and manners of his young
subordinate. Frederic Marest, _procureur-du-roi_, a man about forty
years of age, who had spent six years of his life under the
Restoration in becoming a substitute only to be neglected and left in
Arcis by the government of July, in spite of the fact that he had some
eighteen thousand francs a year of his own, was perpetually kept on
the rack between the necessity of winning the good graces of young
Vinet's father--a touchy attorney-general who might become Keeper of
the Seals--and of keeping his own dignity.

Olivier Vinet, slender in figure, with a pallid face, lighted by a
pair of malicious green eyes, was one of those sarcastic young
gentlemen, inclined to dissipation, who nevertheless know how to
assume the pompous, haughty, and pedantic air with which magistrates
arm themselves when they once reach the bench. The tall, stout, heavy,
and grave _procureur-du-roi_ had lately invented a system by which he
hoped to keep out of trouble with the exasperating Olivier; he treated
him as a father would treat a spoilt child.

"Olivier," he replied to his substitute, slapping him on the shoulder,
"a man of your capacity ought to reflect that Maitre Giguet is very
likely to become deputy. You'd have made that remark just as readily
before the people of Arcis as before us, who are safe friends."

"There is one thing against Giguet," observed Monsieur Martener.