Pedigree by Georges Simenon Page A

less intelligent than you are should earn more than you do, in your own office.’
    â€˜Good luck to him. Have we ever gone short of anything?’
    â€˜It seems he even drinks.’
    â€˜What he does outside the office is no concern of ours.’
    And the word ‘office’, in Mamelin’s mind, had a capital letter. He loved his big ledgers, and his eyes sparkled when, with his lips quivering slightly and his finger running down the columns, he did a sum, faster than anybody else, as all his colleagues agreed. They recognized too that he had never made a mistake. That was not just idle talk. It was an act of faith.
    â€˜Mamelin? He doesn’t need a ready-reckoner.’
    After ten years of his trade, does a juggler still experience some pleasure at bringing off all his tricks, at catching all the balls in the top-hat balanced on his wooden cigar?
    On the stroke of ten o’clcock, with that slightly familiar solemnity that sacristans display in the sanctuary, Désiré knocked on Monsieur Monnoyeur’s door and disappeared inside with the post which he had just finished sorting.
    At the same time, the two painters in white smocks entered the Guillemins station, like workmen on their way to do a job in the suburbs, and Marette was so pale that anyone might have thought he was going to faint.
    â€˜Two third-class tickets to Huy.’
    â€˜Returns?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    Somewhere in the station there was a member of the secret police. The newspapers had said so. It was impossible to say whether it was this fat man walking up and down with his hands behind his back, or that gentleman with the attaché case who was gazing at the weighing-machine.
    â€˜Will passengers for Angleur, Ougrée, Seraing, Huy, Sprimont, Andenne and Namur please take their seats.’
    â€˜Start walking.’
    During the quiet, leisurely hours of the morning, Valérie kept thinking about Élise who was so unlucky, who had an ailing child, and who was so upset because she had no milk.
    â€˜I’m sorry to bother you again, Madame Smet. If it isn’t too much trouble for you … The fire!’
    What a nightmare it was, that fire which might go out, and which the old lady would be incapable of lighting again! How had she managed to be married and raise children when she wasn’t even capable of keeping a fire alight?
    The train moved off. The two workmen in smocks stood in the corridor and the passengers who pushed past them were afraid of getting paint on their clothes.
    Désiré juggled with his figures. He was waiting for midday. He had set aside for himself every day an hour and a half of perfect happiness. This began on the stroke of noon, when the others went off like pigeons being released.
    He stayed behind on his own, for the office remained open without a break from nine o’clock in the morning until six o’clock in the evening. It was he who had asked for this duty which he could have delegated to somebody else.
    Clients were few and far between. The office really belonged to him. He had some ground coffee in his pocket. He put some water to heat on the stove, took a little enamel coffee-pot out of a cupboard as the watchman at Torset’s must do every night, and then, sitting in his corner, he opened a newspaper and slowly ate a sandwich while drinking his coffee.
    By way of dessert, he tackled a difficult or delicate piece of work calling for peace and quiet.
    In his shirtsleeves, with a cigarette between his lips, he felt really at home, and another rare joy awaited him at half past one.
    Everybody else returned to work and he went off. Everybody else had had dinner and he was going to have his. His place was laid, his place only, at the end of the table, with dishes cooked just for him, well-done meat, carrots, peas and sweets.
    His colleagues did not know this pleasure. They did not know how the town looked at three o’clock in the afternoon when everybody