"M. de Broval will be told you have come, and will probably ask for you. You know that your whole future depends on him?" "And on you, monsieur, yes." "I hope, so far as I am concerned, that that will not cause you much uneasiness.... But go and thank M. Deviolaine; go! You have already delayed too long." I bowed to M. Oudard and I went out. Five minutes afterwards, I was at M. Deviolaine's. He worked in a large room by himself, and at a desk which stood alone in the middle of the room. As I was preceded by an office-boy, and as it was presumed that I had been sent by M. Oudard, they let me enter unannounced. M. Deviolaine heard the door open and he waited an instant for someone to speak; then, as I also was waiting, he looked up and asked-- "Who is there?" "It is I, M. Deviolaine." "Who, you? (_toi_)" "I see you recognise me, by the way you speak." "Yes, I recognise you.... So there you are! Well, you are a fine lad!" "Why, if you please?" "Well! you have been to Paris three times without paying me a single call." "I did not know you would care to see me." "It was not for you to question whether it would please me or not; it was your duty to come." "Well, here I am; better late than never." "What have you come for now?" "I have come to thank you." "What for?" "For what you said about me to M. Oudard." "You are not difficult to please, then." "Why?" "Do you know what I did say?" "Certainly: you told him I was an idle lad; that I was no good except for copying deeds; that I had tired out the patience of every solicitor in Villers-Cotterets and in Crespy." "Well, is there much thanks due to me for all that?" "No, it was not for that I came to thank you; it was for what you added." "I did not add anything." "But you did!... you went on to say...." "I tell you I added nothing; but I will add something now you are here: that is, that if you are so ill-advised as to write filthy plays and trashy verses here, as you did in Villers-Cotterets, I will report you, I will carry you off with me, I will confine you in one of my offices and I will lead you a dog's life ... see if I don't!" "Let me say, cousin...." "What?" "While I am here...." "Well?" "Even if you do not let me go back." "Well?" "Because that,--_A cause que_, a grammatical error, I know quite well; but Corneille and Bossuet made use of it,--because that I have only come to Paris to write filthy plays and trashy verses, whether I am in the Secretarial Department or here, I must still continue to write them." "Ah, is that so? Do you seriously imagine you can become a Corneille, a Racine or a Voltaire after an education of three francs a month?" "If I were to become such a man as any one of those three, I should be only what another man has been, and that would not be worth while." "You mean, then, that you would do better than they?" "I would do something different." "Come a little nearer me, so that I can give you a good kick, you conceited lad."