"See, on my honor, I am not a rascal!" he said. "What have I done? I have stupidly passed this bit of red ribbon into my buttonhole. Well! that is an offence, it is not a crime! People are not arrested for that! I will pay the fine, if fine there is! You are not going to keep me here with thieves?" In that jail, he endeavored to preserve his appearance as a fashionable elegant and an ironical man of the world, treating his misadventure in a spirit of haughty disdain; but his overstrained nerves led him to act with a sort of cold fury that gave him the desire to openly oppose, as in a duel, his many adversaries. "I beg you to remain calm," one of these men repeated to him from time to time in a passionless way. "Oh! that is easy enough for you to say," cried Lissac. "I ask you once more, where is Monsieur Jouvenet?--I wish to see Monsieur Jouvenet!" "Monsieur le Prefect cannot be seen in this way," was the reply. "Moreover, you haven't to see any one; you have only to wait." "Wait for what?" They led Guy de Lissac through the passages to the door of a new cell, which they opened before him. "Then," he said, as he tried to force a troubled smile, "I am a prisoner? Quite seriously? As in melodrama? This is high comedy!" He asked if he would soon be examined, at least. They didn't know. They hardly replied to him. Could he write, at any rate? Notify any one? Protest? What should he do? He heard from the lips of a keeper who had the appearance of a very honest man, the information, crushing as a verdict: "You are in close confinement, as it is called!" _In close confinement?_ Were they mocking him? In secret, he, Lissac? Evidently, they wanted to make fun; it was absurd, it was unlikely, such things only happened in operettas. He would heartily relish it at the Cafe Riche presently, when he went to dine. _In close confinement?_ He was no longer annoyed at the jest, so amusing had it become. For an old Parisian like him, it was a facetious romance and almost amusing. "A climax!" Evening passed and night came. They brought Lissac a meal, and the _jest_, as he called it, in no way came to an end. He did not close his eyes for the whole night. He was stifled, and grew angry within the narrow cage in which they had locked him. All sorts of wild projects of revenge passed through his brain. He would send his seconds to Monsieur Jouvenet, he would protest in the papers. He would have public opinion in his favor. Then his scepticism came to his aid, and shrugging his shoulders, he said: "Bah! public opinion! It will ridicule me, that's all! It will accuse me of desiring to make a stir, to cut off my dog's tail. To-day, Alcibiades would thus cut off his, but the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals would bring an action against him."