reading the note_] He isn't coming.

BUNERAT. I hardly expected him.

MADAME VAGRET. A nervous headache he says. He left by the 6:49 train.

MOUZON. That's significant!

MADAME BUNERAT. It would be impossible to mark his disapproval more
clearly.

BUNERAT. Three acquittals too!

MADAME BUNERAT. If it had been a question of celebrated pleaders! But
newly fledged advocates!

BUNERAT. Nobodies!

MADAME VAGRET [_to her daughter_] My poor child! What will his report be
like?

BERTHA. What report?

MADAME VAGRET. Don't you know? At the close of each session the
President submits a report to the Minister--Ah, my dear Madame Bunerat!
[_The three women seat themselves at the back of the stage_]

MOUZON. Three acquittals--and the Irissary murder. A deplorable record!
A pretty pickle we're in.

BUNERAT. You know, my dear Vagret, I'm a plain speaker. No
shilly-shallying about me. When I hunt the boar I charge right down on
him. I speak plainly--anyone can know what's in my mind. I'm the son of
a peasant, I am, and I make no bones about it. Well, it seems to me that
your Bar--I know, of course, that you lead it with distinguished
integrity and honesty--but it seems to me--how shall I put it?--that
it's getting weak. Mouzon, you will remember, said the same thing when
he was consulting the statistics.

MOUZON. It really is a very bad year.

BUNERAT. You know it was a question of making ourselves an exception to
the general rule--of getting our Court raised to a higher class. Well,
Mauleon won't be raised from the third class to the second if the number
of causes diminishes.

MOUZON. We should have to prove that we had been extremely busy.

BUNERAT. And many of the cases you settled by arrangement might well
have been the subject of proceedings.

MOUZON. Just reflect that this year we have awarded a hundred and
eighteen years less imprisonment than we did last year!

BUNERAT. And yet the Court has not been to blame. We safeguard the
interests of society with the greatest vigilance.

MOUZON. But before we can punish you must give us prisoners.

VAGRET. I have recently issued the strictest orders respecting the
repression of smuggling offences, which are so common in these parts.

BUNERAT. Well, that's something. You understand the point of view we
take. It's a question of the safety of the public, my dear fellow.

MOUZON. We are falling behind other Courts of the same class. See, I've
worked out the figures