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The next day, after the court had risen, Vinet met the colonel and Rogron talking a walk together, according to their daily custom. Whenever the three men were seen in company the whole town talked of it. This triumvirate, held in horror by the sub-prefect, the magistracy, and the Tiphaine clique, was, on the other hand, a source of pride and vanity to the Liberals of Provins.
He became a rumple-collared, dusty-hatted fag of the Lower Third, and a light half-back at Little Side foot-ball; was pushed and prodded through the slack backwaters of the Lower Fourth, where the raffle of a school generally accumulates; won his "second-fifteen" cap at foot-ball, enjoyed the dignity of a study with two companions in it, and began to look forward to office as a sub-prefect.
"Nothing satisfactory," replied Goulard, stepping quickly, as if he wanted to get away from the others, who now walked silently toward the middle of the square, somewhat piqued by the manner of the sub-prefect. There Monsieur Martener noticed old Madame Beauvisage, the mother of Phileas, surrounded by nearly all the bourgeois on the square, to whom she was apparently relating something.
The sub-prefect allowed an expression of satisfaction to appear upon his features, which did not escape the notice of his three companions, with whom, moreover, he had a full understanding. All four being bachelors, and tolerably rich, they had formed, without premeditation, an alliance against the dulness of the provinces.
It seemed as if there was no longer a drop of blood in my veins, when at last my name was called. I stepped up, seeing and hearing nothing; I put my hand in the box and drew a number. Monsieur the Sub-Prefect cried out: "Number seventeen." Then I left without speaking, Catharine and her mother behind me.
And lifting the telegram he read: Former mayor dismissed. Inform him immediately, More orders following. For the sub-prefect: SAPIN, Councillor.
This theme excited Camors's attention at once, especially when the sub-prefect intimated with much reserve that the General, busied with his new surroundings, would probably resign his office as deputy. "But that would be embarrassing," exclaimed Des Rameures. "Who the deuce would replace him?
"No, but Julien does; she is the goddaughter of his father, and they are good friends together." "Then try, through Julien, to get her to live with us. Mamma wouldn't consider wages." "Mademoiselle, to hear is to obey, as they say to despots in Asia," replied the sub-prefect. "Just see to what lengths I will go in order to serve you."
"'The sub-prefect set all the constabulary at his heels; but, pshaw! he was never caught. Lepas believed that the Spaniard had drowned himself.
The entire male population thus devoted to works of constraint, nothing else in prospect for either the cultivated or the uncultivated, no military or civil career other than a prolonged guard duty, threatened and threatening, as soldier, customs-inspector, or gendarme, as prefect, sub-prefect, or commissioner of police, that is to say, as subaltern henchman and bully restraining subjects and raising contributions, confiscating and burning merchandise, seizing grumblers, and making the refractory toe the mark.
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