When Joseph had
reduced this chaos to some sort of order, and brought to the front
such things as might be most pleasing to the eye, as if it were a shop
front, or such as by their color might give the effect of a kind of
official poetry, he stood for a minute in the midst of the labyrinth
of papers piled in some places even on the floor, admired his
handiwork, jerked his head, and went.
The anxious sinecure-holder did not share his retainer's favorable
opinion. Before seating himself in his deep chair, whose rounded back
screened him from draughts, he looked round him doubtfully, examined
his dressing-gown with a hostile expression, shook off a few grains of
snuff, carefully wiped his nose, arranged the tongs and shovel, made
the fire, pulled up the heels of his slippers, pulled out his little
queue of hair which had lodged horizontally between the collar of his
waistcoat and that of his dressing-gown restoring it to its
perpendicular position; then he swept up the ashes of the hearth,
which bore witness to a persistent catarrh. Finally, the old man did
not settle himself till he had once more looked all over the room,
hoping that nothing could give occasion to the saucy and impertinent
remarks with which his daughter was apt to answer his good advice. On
this occasion he was anxious not to compromise his dignity as a
father. He daintily took a pinch of snuff, cleared his throat two or
three times, as if he were about to demand a count out of the House;
then he heard his daughter's light step, and she came in humming an
air from Il Barbiere.
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