"That's just it!" leered Féresse, as he deposited fresh bottles by the old ones. "_M. le Directeur général_ does not look upon it in that light: he wishes me to keep this room for myself, and does not intend a new-comer to lay down the law." I walked up to him, the blood mantling my face. "The new-comer, however insignificant he may be, is still your superior," I said; "so you should speak to him with your head uncovered. Take your cap off, you young cub!" And, at the same moment, I gave the lad a back-hander that sent his hat flying against the wall, and took my departure. All this happened in the absence of M. Deviolaine; therefore I had not the last word in the matter. M. Deviolaine would not return for two or three days; so I decided to go home to my poor mother, and there await his return. But, before I left the office, I went and told Oudard all that had happened, who said he could not do anything in the matter, and I told M. Pieyre, who said that he could not do much. My mother was in a state of despair: it reminded her too much of my return home from Maître Lefèvre's in 1823. She rushed off to Madame Deviolaine. Madame Deviolaine was an excellent woman but narrow-minded, and she could not understand why a clerk should have any other ambition beyond that of ultimately becoming a first class clerk; why a first class clerk should desire to become anything beyond an assistant chief clerk; why an assistant chief clerk should have any other ambition than that of becoming chief clerk, and so forth. So she did not hold out any promises to my mother; for that matter, the poor woman had not much influence over her husband, as she well knew, and she but rarely tried to exercise what little she did possess. Meanwhile, I had begged Porcher to come to our house. I showed him my almost completed tragedy, and I asked him whether, in case of adverse circumstances, he would advance me a certain sum. "Confound it!" Porcher replied--"a tragedy!... If it had been a vaudeville I do not say but that I would!... However, _get it received_ and we will see." "Get it received!" Therein, of course, lay the whole question.