... nation, the clerks have become, in spite of our fine patriotic ideas, the subsidiaries of the government; their superiors are blown about by the wind... ...e rehabilitation of the Civil Service while the liberal cries aloud in his newspapers that the salaries of clerks are a standing theft, calls the item... ...ur or two; that is to say, he lay back in a comfortable chair and read the newspapers, dictated the meaning of a letter, received visitors when the mi... ... ser- vices went on between them; he poured into their ears his misleading news and swallowed theirs; he prevented them from attacking this or that mi... ... had the impertinence, so Bixiou said, to enter the room first; Paulmier’s corporation spread to right and left. A favorite amusement with Bixiou was ...