You may perhaps tell me that he longs to get out of his place,--that he works too hard and fingers too little metal, except that of his musket." Poiret [his eyes wide open].

"Monsieur, a government clerk is, logically speaking, a man who needs the salary to maintain himself, and is not free to get out of his place; for he doesn't know how to do anything but copy papers." Bixiou.

"Ah! now we are coming to a conclusion.

So the bureau is the clerk's shell, husk, pod.

No clerk without a bureau, no bureau without a clerk.