L. And you allow the name of a magistrate to be coupled
in a police report with that of the woman Pecquet?

MOUZON. She told me her name was Diane de Montmorency.

ATTORNEY-GENERAL. [_continuing_] "Questioned by us, the commissary of
police, on the following morning, as to the rank of officer in the navy
which he had assumed"--[_The Attorney-General gazes at Mouzon. Another
pause_]

MOUZON [_still smiling_] Yes, it's on account of my whiskers, you know.

ATTORNEY-GENERAL. Really?

MOUZON. When I--oh, well--when I go to Bordeaux I always assume the rank
of naval officer, in order to safeguard the dignity of the law.

ATTORNEY-GENERAL. You seem to have been a little tardy in considering
it.

MOUZON. I beg you to note, your honor, that I endeavored to safeguard it
from the very first, since I took care to go out of the arrondissement
and even the judicial division--in order to--

ATTORNEY-GENERAL. I will continue. "Monsieur Mouzon then informed us of
his actual position as examining magistrate, and invoked that quality in
requesting that we would stop proceedings."

MOUZON. The ass. He has put that in his report? Oh, really--that's due
to his lack of education. No, it's a political affair--the commissary is
one of our opponents--I asked him--After all--I wanted to avoid scandal.
Anyone would have done the same in my place.

ATTORNEY-GENERAL. Is that the only explanation you have to give me?

MOUZON. Explanation? The truth is, Monsieur, that if you insist on
maintaining, in this conversation, the relations between a superior and
a subordinate, I can give you no further explanation. But if you would
be so good as to allow me for a moment to forget your position, if you
would agree to talk to me as man to man, I should tell you that this was
a fault of youth, regrettable, no doubt, but explained by the profound
boredom which exudes from the very paving-stones of Mauleon. Come, come!
I had dined too well. Every night of the year a host of decent fellows
find themselves in the same case. It's a pecadillo which doesn't affect
one's personal honor.

ATTORNEY-GENERAL. Monsieur, when one has the honor to be a
magistrate--when one has accepted the mission of judging one's fellows,
one is bound more than all others to observe temperance and to consider
one's dignity in all things. What may not affect the honor of the
private citizen does affect the honor of the judge. You may take that
for granted.

MOUZON. As you ref