Instead, I was stupid enough to be nettled and to lose my head.
"Well," I retorted, "I must have a paying profession.

That one or another--what does it matter?
Not everybody can belong to the Institute, as your daughter remarked; not everybody can afford himself the luxury of publishing, at his own expense, works that sell twenty-seven copies or so." I expected a thunderbolt, an explosion.

Not a bit of it.

M.Charnot smiled outright with an air of extreme geniality.
"I perceive, sir, that you are given to gossiping with the booksellers." "Why, yes, sir, now and then." "It's a very pretty trait, at your age, to be already so strong in bibliography.

You will permit me, nevertheless, to add something to your present stock of notions.