ou reached your mother's house?"

"A few minutes after five."

"Can you not say exactly?"

"About a quarter past five, a few minutes more or less."

"And you did not go out again?"

"No."

"Did any one call at your mother's after you arrived there?"

"No one. My sister came in at seven o'clock, as usual, when she returned
from her lesson."

"Before you went up to your rooms did you speak with any of the other
lodgers?"

"No."

There was a pause, and Florentin felt the judge's eyes fixed on him with
an aggravating persistency. It seemed as if this look, which enveloped
him from head to foot, wished to penetrate his inmost thoughts.

"Another thing," said the judge. "You did not lose a trousers' button
while you were with Caffie?"

Florentin expected this question, and for some time he had considered
what answer he should make to it. To deny was impossible. It would be
easy to convict him of a fib, for the fact of the question being asked
was sufficient to say there was proof that the button was his. He must,
then, confess the truth, grave as it might be.

"Yes," he said, "and this is how--"

He related in detail the story of the bundle of papers placed on the
highest shelf of the cases, his slipping on the ladder, and the loss of
the button, which he did not discover until he was in the street.

The judge opened a drawer and took from it a small box, from which he
took a button that he handed to Florentin.

"Is that it?" he asked.

Florentin looked at it.

"It is difficult for me to answer," he said, finally; "one button
resembles another."

"Not always."

"In that case, it would be necessary for me to have observed the form
of the one I lost, and I gave no attention to it. It seems to me that no
one knows exactly how, or of what, the buttons are made that they wear."

The judge examined him anew.

"But are not the trousers that you wear to-day the same from which this
button was torn?"

"It is the pair I wore the day I called on Monsieur Caffie."

"Then it is quite easy to compare the button that I show you with those
on your trousers, and your answer becomes easy."

It was impossible to escape this verification.

"Unbutton your vest," said the judge, "and make your comparison with
care--with all the care that you think wise. The question has some
importance."

Florentin felt it only too much, the importance of this question, but as
it was set before him, he could not but answer fran