Rabourdin, on the contrary, protected the clerks against their creditors, and turned the latter away, saying that the government bureaus were open for public business, not private.

Much ridicule pursued Vimeux in both bureaus when the clank of his spurs resounded in the corridors and on the staircases.

The wag of the ministry, Bixiou, sent round a paper, headed by a caricature of his victim on a pasteboard horse, asking for subscriptions to buy him a live charger.

Monsieur Baudoyer was down for a bale of hay taken from his own forage allowance, and each of the clerks wrote his little epigram; Vimeux himself, good-natured fellow that he was, subscribed under the name of "Miss Fairfax." Handsome clerks of the Vimeux style have their salaries on which to live, and their good looks by which to make their fortune.

Devoted to masked balls during the carnival, they seek their luck there, though it often escapes them.