They came in flocks, invaded the Salle des Pas-Perdus, galloped about in all directions like excited little black kids, calling from one end to the other of the echoing hall: "O Pe! O Tche!" inhaling with delight the odor of government, of administration that filled the air, making eyes at the ministers who passed, sniffing at their heels, as if some prebend were about to fall from their venerable pockets, from their swollen portfolios; but crowding around "Moussiou" Jansoulet especially, with so many urgent petitions, demands, demonstrations, that, in order to rid himself of that gesticulating mob at which everybody turned to look, and which made him seem like the delegate of a tribe of Touaregs in the midst of a civilized people, he was obliged to glance imploringly at some usher who was skilled in the art of rescue under such circumstances and would come to him in a great hurry and say, "that he was wanted immediately in the eighth committee." So that the poor Nabob, persecuted everywhere, driven from the corridors, the Pas-Perdus, the restaurant, had adopted the course of never leaving his bench, where he sat motionless and mute throughout the sitting. He had, however, one friend in the Chamber,--a deputy newly elected for Deux-Sevres, named M. Sarigue, a poor fellow not unlike the inoffensive, ignoble animal whose name he bore,[2] with his sparse, red hair, his frightened eyes, his hopping gait in his white gaiters. He was so shy that he could not say two words without stammering, almost tongue-tied, incessantly rolling balls of chewing-gum around in his mouth, which put the finishing touch to the viscosity of his speech; and every one wondered why such an impotent creature had cared to become a member of the Assembly, what delirious female ambition had spurred on to public office a man so unfitted for the least important private function. FOOTNOTES: [2] A _sarigue_ is an opossum. By an amusing manifestation of the irony of fate, Jansoulet, who was intensely agitated by the uncertainty concerning his own confirmation, was chosen by the eighth committee to make the report on the Deux-Sevres election, and M. Sarigue, realizing his incapacity, full of a ghastly dread of being sent back in disgrace to his own fireside, prowled humbly and beseechingly around that tall, curly-haired worthy, whose broad shoulder-blades moved back and forth like the bellows of a forge under his fine tightly fitting frock-coat, little suspecting that a poor, worried creature like himself was hidden beneath that solid envelope.