read of seeing him again,
she was anxious that the priests should take good care to bury him, and
that everybody should attend the funeral, so that he should be all the
more thoroughly buried; as thoroughly buried, in short, as it was
possible to be. Her lips trembled and she wrung her hands.

Trublet, who had long graduated in human nature, watched her with
interest. He understood and took a special interest in the female of the
human machine. This particular specimen filled him with joy. His
snub-nosed face beamed with delight as he watched her.

"Don't be uneasy, child. There is always a way of coming to an
understanding with the Church. What you are asking me is not within my
powers; I am a lay doctor. But we have to-day, thank God, religious
physicians who send their patients to the ecclesiastical waters, and
whose special function is to attest miraculous cures. I know one who
lives in this part of the town; I'll give you his address. Go and see
him; the Bishop will refuse him nothing. He will arrange the matter for
you."

"Not at all," said Pradel. "You always attended poor Chevalier. It is
for you to give a certificate."

Romilly agreed:

"Of course, doctor. You are the physician to the theatre. We must wash
our dirty linen at home."

At the same time, Nanteuil turned upon Socrates a gaze of entreaty.

"But," objected Trublet, "what do you want me to say?"

"It's very simple," Pradel replied. "Say that he was to a certain extent
irresponsible."

"You are simply asking me to speak like a police surgeon. It's expecting
too much of me."

"You believe then, doctor, that Chevalier was fully and entirely morally
responsible?"

"Quite the contrary. I am of opinion that he was not in the least
responsible for his actions."

"Well, then?"

"But I also consider that, in this respect, he differed in nowise from
you, myself, and all other men. My judicial colleagues distinguish
between individual responsibilities. They have procedures by which they
recognize full responsibilities, and those which lack one or more
fractional parts. It is a remarkable fact, moreover, that in order to
get a poor wretch condemned they always find him fully responsible. May
we not therefore consider that their own responsibility is full--like
the moon?"

And Dr. Socrates proceeded to unfold before the astonished stage folk a
comprehensive theory of universal determinism. He went back to the
origins of life, and, like the Silen