ritanical cleanliness which black demands. His trousers, always
threadbare, looked like camlet--the stuff of which attorneys' gowns
are made; and his habitual stoop set them, in time, in such innumerable
creases, that in places they were traced with lines, whitish, rusty, or
shiny, betraying either sordid avarice, or the most unheeding poverty.
His coarse worsted stockings were twisted anyhow in his ill-shaped
shoes. His linen had the tawny tinge acquired by long sojourn in a
wardrobe, showing that the late lamented Madame Popinot had had a mania
for much linen; in the Flemish fashion, perhaps, she had given herself
the trouble of a great wash no more than twice a year. The old man's
coat and waistcoat were in harmony with his trousers, shoes, stockings,
and linen. He always had the luck of his carelessness; for, the first
day he put on a new coat, he unfailingly matched it with the rest of his
costume by staining it with incredible promptitude. The good man waited
till his housekeeper told him that his hat was too shabby before buying
a new one. His necktie was always crumpled and starchless, and he never
set his dog-eared shirt collar straight after his judge's bands had
disordered it. He took no care of his gray hair, and shaved but twice
a week. He never wore gloves, and generally kept his hands stuffed into
his empty trousers' pockets; the soiled pocket-holes, almost always
torn, added a final touch to the slovenliness of his person.

Any one who knows the Palais de Justice at Paris, where every variety
of black attire may be studied, can easily imagine the appearance of M.
Popinot. The habit of sitting for days at a time modifies the structure
of the body, just as the fatigue of hearing interminable pleadings tells
on the expression of a magistrate's face. Shut up as he is in courts
ridiculously small, devoid of architectural dignity, and where the air
is quickly vitiated, a Paris judge inevitably acquires a countenance
puckered and seamed by reflection, and depressed by weariness; his
complexion turns pallid, acquiring an earthy or greenish hue according
to his individual temperament. In short, within a given time the most
blooming young man is turned into an "inasmuch" machine--an instrument
which applies the Code to individual cases with the indifference of
clockwork.

Hence, nature, having bestowed on M. Popinot a not too pleasing
exterior, his life as a lawyer had not improved it. His frame was
graceless and