Ned--carried into a dusky vestibule, and thence into a little side office where he must await, under guard, the commissary’s pleasure--was ushered, after no great interval, into the presence of that tremendous functionary. He found him a young man--rather a revolutionary _blondin_--military and fastidious, with a nose as high-bridged as the fifth proposition in Euclid, and an under-jaw like a griffin’s. He was seated in an elbow-chair in the front of his men. The Cagot, under care of a turnkey, stood before and well away from him; and between him and the Cagot a soldier held out a burning pastile on the point of a bayonet. He made a little gesture to the new-comer, almost as if he were kissing his finger-tips, and addressed him at once in a lisping voice. “Your name, if you please?” Ned satisfied him. “Citizen Edward Murk,” he said, waving away the superfluous title with a scented hand, “thou art accused of interfering with the processes of the law and inciting to a riot.” Ned exploded immediately. “The law, monsieur! But I interfered in vindication of it.” “How, then? Didst thou not oppose thyself to the people’s will?” “To their violence, rather.” “It was their will, nevertheless; and the people’s will is the law. Therefore thou opposedst the law.” “It is a new law, that, monsieur.” “Truly. It dates from the year one.” “Of Fraternity? And what has the law one of Fraternity to say to my servant here?” He indicated the dazed Laurent. The commissary lifted his passionless eyebrows. “This man is, I understand, a Cagot--(another pastile, Benoît)--a Cagot, sir; and yet he will venture into the public ways, gloveless and without shoes.” “Thus poisoning what he touches, you will say. Monsieur, it is a superstition. This year one is surely no better than other years the first--than other opening pages to our periodic new ledgers of reform--if we carry forward into it a tyrannical superstition.” “What has that to do with the matter? This is a man----” “It is indeed, monsieur,” answered Ned sharply. He was growing impatient of this meaningless arraignment. He had other and more important business to attend to. He looked into the vacuous young face. “Is not this all inapplicable?” he said. “I tell monsieur that the man is my servant; that we saw a woman suffering ill-treatment; that we went to her assistance humanely and without violence. We are guilty of no assault, no resistance to or outrage against any law, either of the year one or of the year one thousand and one; and I must ask monsieur to discharge us on the simple facts of the case.” He took, it is to be acknowledged, the wrong way with a fool. “I know nothing of the year one thousand and one,” said the officer, with feeble irony. “It was before my time.” “Doubtless,” snapped in Ned, “monsieur was born yesterday.” The commissary, supporting his right elbow with his left hand, sank back in his chair, pinched his callow throat into a bag, and closed his eyes.