about what he was to be
questioned.

"It is concerning the affair in the Rue Sainte-Anne that you wish this
information?" he said.

"Frankly, yes."

"Well, frankly also, I do not know if the secrets of the profession
permit me to answer you."

The agent, who was by no means stupid, immediately understood the man's
character, and instead of yielding to the desire to laugh, caused by
this reply honestly made by this good-natured man, whose long, black,
bushy beard and bald head accentuated his gravity, he yielded to the
necessity of the occasion.

"That is a question to discuss."

"Then let us discuss it. A customer, confiding in my honesty and
discretion, gives me an order to make a pair of trousers; he pays me as
he agreed, without beating me down, and on the day he promised. We are
loyal to each other. I give him a pair of good trousers, honestly made,
and he pays me with good money. We are even. Have I the right afterward,
by imprudent words, or otherwise, to furnish clews against him? The case
is a delicate one."

"Do you place the interest of the individual above that of society?"

"When it is a question of a professional secret, yes. Where should we be
if the lawyer, the notary, the doctor, the confessor, the tailor, could
accept compromises on this point of doctrine? It would be anarchy,
simply, and in the end it would be the interest of society that would
suffer."

The agent, who had no time to lose, began to be impatient.

"I will tell you," he said, "that the tailor, however important his
profession may be, is not placed exactly as the doctor or confessor.
Have you not a book in which you write your customers' orders?"

"Certainly."

"So that if you persevere in a theory, pushing it to an extreme, I need
only to go to the commissioner of your quarter, who, in virtue of the
power of the law conferred upon him, will seize your books."

"That would be by violence, and my responsibility would be at an end."

"And in these books the judge would see to whom you have furnished
trousers of this stuff. It would only remain then to discover in whose
interest you have wished to escape the investigations of the law."

Saying this, he took from his pocket a small box, and taking out a piece
of paper, he took from it a button to which adhered a piece of navy blue
stuff.

Valerius, who was not in the least moved by the threat of the
commissioner, for he was a man to brave martyrdom, looked at the box
cur