Let us continue to clear up these important points." [Poiret turns crimson with distress.] "Suppose we formulate the whole matter in a maxim worthy of Larochefoucault: Officials with salaries of twenty thousand francs are not clerks.

From which we may deduce mathematically this corollary: The statesman first looms up in the sphere of higher salaries; and also this second and not less logical and important corollary: Directors-general may be statesmen.

Perhaps it is in that sense that more than one deputy says in his heart, 'It is a fine thing to be a director-general.' But in the interests of our noble French language and of the Academy--" Poiret [magnetized by the fixity of Bixiou's eye].

"The French language! the Academy!" Bixiou [twisting off the second button and seizing another].

"Yes, in the interests of our noble tongue, it is proper to observe that although the head of a bureau, strictly speaking, may be called a clerk, the head of a division must be called a bureaucrat.