owers. Little
explosions of laughter were still coming from the various groups, as
if they had been seeing an amusing piece at the theatre. The little
humpback had got it hot--five years' imprisonment and costs. But how
comic Margery had been! Marguerite Oger was exclaiming in fits, 'Oh my
dears, my dears!' and Danjou, escorting Madame Eviza to her carriage,
said aloud in his cynical way, 'It's a slap in the face for the
Academie, well planted--but it was cleverly done.'

Leonard Astier, who was walking alone, heard Danjou's remark as well
as others, in spite of the warnings passed from mouth to mouth, 'Take
care--there he is.' It signified to him the beginning of his fall in
estimation, consequent on the general knowledge of his folly and the
amusement of Paris.

'Take my arm, my dear master!' said Freydet, who had been carried to him
by the strong impulse of affection.

'Ah, my dear friend, how much good you do me!' said the old man in a
dull, broken voice.

They walked on in silence for some time. The trees on the quay cast a
tracery of shade upon the stones below; the sounds of the street and the
river echoed in the joyous air. It was one of those days on which human
wretchedness seems to have been reprieved.

'Where are we going?' asked Freydet.

'Anywhere--except home,' answered the elder man, who felt a child's
terror at the thought of the scene his wife would inflict on him at
dinner.

They dined together at the Point-du-Jour after walking a long time by
the river. When poor Astier returned home very late the friendly words
of his old pupil and the sweetness of the air had succeeded in restoring
his peace of mind. He had got over his five hours in the stocks on the
bench of the Eighth Chamber--five hours to endure with bound hands the
insulting laughter of the crowd and the vitriol squirt of the counsel.
'Laugh, apes, laugh! Posterity will judge!' was the thought with which
he consoled himself as he crossed the large courts of the Institute,
wrapped in slumber, with unlighted windows and great dark foursquare
holes right and left where the staircases came down. He felt his way
upstairs and reached his study noiselessly like a thief. Since Paul's
marriage and his quarrel with his son he was in the habit of flinging
himself down every night on a bed made up in the study, to escape the
interminable midnight discussions in which the wife always comes off
victorious, thanks to the never-failing support of he