I should say he knows he's dismissed." [Fleury rushes to the window.] "Gentlemen, adieu; I'll go and tell Monsieur Baudoyer that I hear from you that Rabourdin is appointed; it will make him furious, the pious creature! Then I'll tell him of our wager, to cool him down,--a process we call at the theatre turning the Wheel of Fortune, don't we, du Bruel?
Why do I care who gets the place?
simply because if Baudoyer does he will make me under-head-clerk" [goes out].
Poiret.

"Everybody says that man is clever, but as for me, I can never understand a word he says" [goes on copying].

"I listen and listen; I hear words, but I never get at any meaning; he talks about the environs of Paris when he discusses the human heart and" [lays down his pen and goes to the stove] "declares he backs the devil's game when it is a question of Russia and Boulogne; now what is there so clever in that, I'd like to know?
We must first admit that the devil plays any game at all, and then find out what game; possibly dominoes" [blows his nose].
Fleury [interrupting].

"Pere Poiret is blowing his nose; it must be eleven o'clock." Du Bruel.

"So it is! Goodness! I'm off to the secretary; he wants to read the obituary." Poiret.