hour of the feast with hungry impatience; some of them were raging over the
absence of the head clerk, without whom they could not commence their
breakfast pursuant to etiquette.

This radical change in the ordinary meals of the clerks of Jacques Ferrand
announced an excessive domestic revolution.

The following conversation, eminently Boeotian (if we may be allowed to
borrow this word from the witty writer who has made it popular), will throw
some light upon this important question:

"Behold a turkey who never expected, when he entered into life, to appear
at breakfast on the table of our governor's quill-drivers!"

"Just so; when the governor entered on the life of a notary, in like manner
he never expected to give his clerks a turkey for breakfast."

"For this turkey is ours," cried Stump-in-the-Gutters, the office-boy, with
greedy eyes.

"My friend you forget; this turkey must be a foreigner to you."

"And as a Frenchman, you should hate a foreigner."

"All that can be done is to give you the claws."

"Emblem of the velocity with which you run your errands."

"I think, at least, I have a right to the carcass," said the boy,
murmuring.