He is always moving round on the sly, that man.

He is on your back before you know it.

Yesterday, contrary to his usual ways, he outstayed the last man in the office; such a thing hasn't happened three times since he has been at the ministry." Here follows the portrait of Monsieur Dutocq, order-clerk in the Rabourdin bureau: Thirty-eight years old, oblong face and bilious skin, grizzled hair always cut close, low forehead, heavy eyebrows meeting together, a crooked nose and pinched lips; tall, the right shoulder slightly higher than the left; brown coat, black waistcoat, silk cravat, yellowish trousers, black woollen stockings, and shoes with flapping bows; thus you behold him.

Idle and incapable, he hated Rabourdin,--naturally enough, for Rabourdin had no vice to flatter, and no bad or weak side on which Dutocq could make himself useful.

Far too noble to injure a clerk, the chief was also too clear-sighted to be deceived by any make-believe.