All history bears
witness to the same truth.'
The simple-minded Frenchmen put down this infatuation to the Duke's
early training, little knowing that our English men of rank are the
simplest fellows in the world, and are quite indifferent to their
titles save in business matters.
The Frenchmen paid the bill, and they all three went on to the
Boulevard.
'Now,' said the first man to his two companions, 'I will give you a
practical example of what I meant when I said that Bureaucracy
governed mankind.'
He went up to the wall of the Credit Lyonnais, put the forefinger of
either hand against it, about twenty-five centimetres apart, and at a
level of about a foot above his eyes. Holding his fingers thus he
gazed at them, shifting them slightly from time to time and moving his
glance from one to the other rapidly. A crowd gathered. In a few
moments a pleasant elderly, short, and rather fat gentleman in the
crowd came forward, and, taking off his hat, asked if he could do
anything for him.
'Why,' said our friend, 'the fact is I am an engineer (section D of
the Public Works Department) and I have to make an important
measurement in connexion with the Apothegm of the Bilateral which runs
to-night precisely through this spot. My fingers now mark exactly the
concentric of the secondary focus whence the Radius Vector should be
drawn, but I find that (like a fool) I have left my Double Refractor
in the cafe hard by. I dare not go for fear of losing the place I have
marked; yet I can get no further without my Double Refractor.'
'Do not let that trouble you,' said the short, stout stranger; 'I will
be delighted to keep the place exactly marked while you run for your
instrument.'
The crowd was now swelled to a considerable size; it blocked up the
pavement, and was swelled every moment by the arrival of the curious.
The little fat elderly man put his fingers exactly where the other's
had been, effecting the exchange with a sharp gesture; and each
watched intently to see that it was right to within a millimetre. The
attitude was constrained. The elderly man smiled, and begged the
engineer not to be alarmed. So they left him with his two forefingers
well above his head, precisely twenty-five centimetres apart, and
pressing their tips against the wall of the Credit Lyonnais. Then the
three friends slipped out of the crowd and pursued their way.
'Let us go to the theatre,' said the experimenter, 'and when we come
back I warrant you will agree with my remarks on Bureaucracy.'
They went to hear the admirable marble lines of Corneille.
