Oh! the first time that he came into the offices, with his fine presence, his face, a little wrinkled perhaps but so distinguished, the manners of an habitue of courts, on familiar terms with all the princes of the Orient, in a word with the indescribable touch of self-confidence and grandeur that great fortune gives, I felt my heart swell in my waistcoat with its double row of buttons. They may say all they choose about their equality and fraternity, there are some men who are so much above others, that you feel like falling on your face before them and inventing new formulae of adoration to compel them to pay some attention to you. Let me hasten to add that I had no need of anything of the sort to attract the attention of the Nabob. When I rose as he passed--deeply moved but dignified: you can always trust Passajon--he looked at me with a smile and said in an undertone to the young man who accompanied him: "What a fine head, like--" then a word that I did not hear, a word ending in _ard_, like leopard. But no, it could not be that, for I am not conscious of having a head like a leopard. Perhaps he said like Jean-Bart, although I do not see the connection. However, he said: "What a fine head, like--" and his condescension made me proud. By the way, all the gentlemen are very kind, very polite to me. It seems that there has been a discussion in regard to me, whether they should keep me or send me away like our cashier, that crabbed creature who was always talking about sending everybody to the galleys, and whom they requested to go and make his economical shirt-fronts somewhere else. Well done! That will teach him to use vulgar language to people.