Guy, seated in a corner on a divan, was still thinking of Adrienne, of those _night-sessions_, of those expositions, of those agricultural competitions invented by Sulpice, and caught but snatches of the conversation, jests, and nonsensical stories which were made at the cost of the colleagues of the Chamber and political friends: "You know how Badiche learned at the last election that he was not elected?" "No, how?" "He returned to his house, anxious as to the result of the ballot. And he heard, what do you think? His children, a little boy and a little girl, who on receipt of the telegram that papa was waiting for and that mamma in her feverish expectation had opened, had already composed a song to the air of _The Young Man Poisoned_: Resultat tres negatif, Ballottage positif! Badiche est ballo-- Bate, Est ballotte! Oui, Badiche est ballotte; C'est papa qu'est ballotte! Happy precocity! genuine frightful gamins!" "_Du Gavarni_!" "Apropos, on what majority do you count, Monsieur le President?" "One hundred and thirty-nine." "That is a large one." "I! my dear fellow,"--it was old Prangins speaking to Senator Crepeau,--"I do not count myself as likely to be included in the next ministry, no! I do not delude myself, but I shall be in the second--or rather in the third--no, in the fourth--yes, in the fourth ministry--Assuredly!" An asthmatic cough, the cough of an old man, interrupted his remarks. Guy heard Warcolier, as he held a small glass of kirsch in his hand, say with a laugh: "I have a way of holding my electors in leash. Not only when I visit them do I address them as _my friend, my brave_, which flatters them, but from time to time, I write them autograph letters. They look upon that like ready money. Some of them, the good fellows, are flattered: 'He has written to me, he is not proud!' Others, the suspicious fellows, are reassured: 'Now--I have his signature, I have him!' And there you are!" They laughed heartily. "How they laugh _afterward_," thought Lissac, "at the electors whose shoes they would blacken _beforehand_." "The course that I have followed is very simple," said another. "I desired to become sub-prefect so as to become a prefect and a prefect to become a deputy, and a deputy so as to reach a receiver-generalship. The salaries assured, why, there's the crowning of a career." "Why, that fellow _plays the whole gamut_," again thought Guy, "but he is frank!" "I read very little," now replied Crepeau to Warcolier--"I do not much care for pure literature--we politicians, we need substantial reading that will teach us to think." "I believe you!--" murmured this Parisian Guy, still smoking and listening. "Go to school, my good man!"