He often talked of leaving France and seeking his fortune in America.

No wizard could foretell the future of this young man in whom all talents were incomplete; who was incapable of perseverance, intoxicated with pleasure, and who acted on the belief that the world ended on the morrow.
In the matter of dress Bixiou had the merit of never being ridiculous; he was perhaps the only official of the ministry whose dress did not lead outsiders to say, "That man is a government clerk!" He wore elegant boots with black trousers strapped under them, a fancy waistcoat, a becoming blue coat, collars that were the never-ending gift of grisettes, one of Bandoni's hats, and a pair of dark-colored kid gloves.
His walk and bearing, cavalier and simple both, were not without grace.
He knew all this, and when des Lupeaulx summoned him for a piece of impertinence said and done about Monsieur de la Billardiere and threatened him with dismissal, Bixiou replied, "You will take me back because my clothes do credit to the ministry"; and des Lupeaulx, unable to keep from laughing, let the matter pass.

The most harmless of Bixiou's jokes perpetrated among the clerks was the one he played off upon Godard, presenting him with a butterfly just brought from China, which the worthy man keeps in his collection and exhibits to this day, blissfully unconscious that it is only painted paper.

Bixiou had the patience to work up the little masterpiece for the sole purpose of hoaxing his superior.
The devil always puts a martyr near a Bixiou.

Baudoyer's bureau held the martyr, a poor copying-clerk twenty-two years of age, with a salary of fifteen hundred francs, named Auguste-Jean-Francois Minard.