"You have already met Lassagne?" he said.
"Yes, I have just had five minutes' talk with him."
"He is a very good fellow with but one failing: he will be too weak with you; luckily I shall be at hand. Lassagne and Ernest Basset will tell you what your work will be."
"M. de Broval will be told you have come, and will probably ask for you. You know that your whole future depends on him?"
"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--
"I see you recognise me, by the way you speak."
"Yes, I recognise you.... So there you are! Well, you are a fine lad!"
"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."
"For what you said about me to M. Oudard."
"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 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!"
"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."