Hearing these words, M. Worms-Clavelin flung up his hands, as well as his knife, on which was a morsel of cheese, and exclaimed with heartfelt sincerity: “Good God! madame, don’t you see that the streets of the county town are black with curés, and that there are monks behind all the gratings? And as for your young Gustave, damn it! it isn’t I who prevent him from going to mass all day instead of running after the girls!” M. Mauricet was finishing his description of the marvellous blunderbuss, amid the clatter of voices, the echo of laughter, and the little tinkling taps of silver upon china. M. _le préfet_ Worms-Clavelin, who was in a hurry to smoke, passed out first into the billiard-room. He was soon joined there by President Peloux, to whom he held out a cigar: “Have one, do! They are capital.” And in reply to M. Peloux’s thanks, showing the box of regalias, he answered: “Don’t thank me; it is one of our host’s cigars.” This joke was one of his stock ones. At last M. Delion appeared, leading the bulk of the guests, who with greater gallantry had been chatting for a few minutes with the ladies. He was listening approvingly to M. de Gromance, who was explaining to him how necessary it was in shooting to calculate distances accurately. “For instance,” he said, “on uneven ground a hare seems relatively distant, whilst, on level ground, it seems nearer by more than fifty metres. It is on this account that …” “Come,” said M. _le préfet_ Worms-Clavelin, taking down a cue from the rack, “come, Peloux, shall we play a game?” M. _le préfet_ Worms-Clavelin was a pretty fair stroke at billiards; but M. _le président_ Peloux gave him points. A little Norman attorney who, at the close of a disastrous estate case, had been forced to sell his practice, he had been appointed a judge at the time when the Republic was purging the magistracy. Sent from one end of France to the other, in courts where the knowledge of the law had almost disappeared, his skill in sharp practice made him useful, and his ministerial relations secured him advancement. Yet everywhere a vague rumour of his past pursued him, and people refused to treat him with respect. But luckily he was wise enough to know how to endure persistent rebuffs. He bore affronts placidly. M. Lerond, deputy attorney-general, now a barrister at the bar at …, said of him in the Salle des Pas-Perdus: “He is a man of intelligence who knows the distance between his seat and the prisoner’s dock.” Yet that public approval which he had not sought, and which evaded him, had at length, by a sudden recoil, come of its own accord. For the last two years the whole society of the district had looked upon President Peloux as an upright magistrate. They admired his courage when, smiling placidly between his two pale assessors, he had condemned to five years’ imprisonment three confederate anarchists, guilty of having distributed in the barracks bills exhorting the nations to fraternise.