Five or six persons of varying age, sex, and feature were waiting like himself, and as they had arrived before him their turns naturally came before his. Some of them went out alone,--they were the ones, doubtless, against whom no sufficient evidence was adduced,--while others went out accompanied by an exempt, or by two of the provost's guards. Jacques Aubry envied the fortune of these latter, for they were being taken to the Châtelet, to which he was so anxious to be admitted. At last the name of Jacques Aubry, student, was called. Jacques Aubry instantly rose and rushed into the magistrate's office as joyously as if he were on his way to the most agreeable of entertainments. There were two men in the lieutenant criminal's sanctum; one taller, thinner, and more forbidding than he in the antechamber, which Jacques Aubry would have deemed impossible five minutes earlier: this was the clerk. The other was short, fat, coarse, with a cheerful eye, a smiling mouth, and a jovial expression generally: this was the magistrate. Aubry's smile and his met, and the student was quite ready to grasp his hand, so strongly conscious was he of the existence of a bond of sympathy between them. "Ha! ha! ha!" laughed the lieutenant criminal, as he caught the student's eye. "Faith, that is true, messire," the student rejoined. "You seem a jolly dog," said the magistrate. "Come, master knave, take a chair and sit you down." Jacques Aubry took a chair, sat down, threw one leg over the other and swung it in high glee. "Ah!" exclaimed the lieutenant, rubbing his hands. "Master Clerk, let us look over the complainant's deposition." The clerk rose, and, by virtue of his great height, readied over to the other side of the table, and selected the documents concerning Jacques Aubry from a pile of papers. "Here it is," he said. "Who lodges the complaint?" inquired the magistrate. "Gervaise-Perrette Popinot," said the clerk. "That's it," said the student, nodding his head violently; "that's the one." "A minor," said the clerk; "nineteen years of age." "Oho! a minor!" exclaimed Aubry. "So it appears from her declaration." "Poor Gervaise!" muttered Aubry. "She was quite right when she said that she was so confused she didn't know what answers she made; she has confessed to twenty-two. However, nineteen it is." "And so," said the lieutenant criminal, "and so, my buck, you are charged with seducing a minor child. Ha! ha! ha!" "Ha! ha! ha!" echoed Aubry, joining in the judge's hilarity. "With aggravating circumstances," continued the clerk, mingling his yelping tones with the jovial voices of the magistrate and the student. "With aggravating circumstances," repeated the former. "The devil!" exclaimed Jacques. "I should like very much to know what they were." "As the complainant remained deaf to all the entreaties and wiles of the accused for six months--" "For six months?" Jacques interposed. "Pardon, monsieur, I think there's a mistake there."