Antoine came.
Rabourdin asked if any clerk had remained at the office after four o'clock the previous evening.

The man replied that Monsieur Dutocq had worked there later than Monsieur de la Roche, who was usually the last to leave.

Rabourdin dismissed him with a nod, and resumed the thread of his reflections.
"Twice I have prevented his dismissal," he said to himself, "and this is my reward." This morning was to Rabourdin like the solemn hour in which great commanders decide upon a battle and weigh all chances.

Knowing the spirit of official life better than any one, he well knew that it would never pardon, any more than a school or the galleys or the army pardon, what looked like espionage or tale-bearing.

A man capable of informing against his comrades is disgraced, dishonored, despised; the ministers in such a case would disavow their own agents.