urther delay; and whether Mademoiselle Celeste likes it
or not, she must accept him, because, you know, there's an end to all
things."

"Do you hear that, my good fellow?" said la Peyrade, seizing upon
Brigitte's speech. "When I have pleaded, the marriage is to take
place. Your sister is frankness itself; she, at least, doesn't practise
diplomacy."

"Diplomacy!" echoed Brigitte. "I'd like to see myself creeping
underground in matters. I say things as I think them. The workman has
worked, and he ought to have his pay."

"Do be silent," cried Thuillier, stamping his foot; "you don't say a
word that doesn't turn the knife in the wound."

"The knife in the wound?" said Brigitte, inquiringly. "Ah ca! are you
two quarrelling?"

"I told you," said Thuillier, "that la Peyrade had returned our
promises; and the reason he gives is that we are asking him another
service for Celeste's hand. He thinks he has done us enough without it."

"He has done us some services, no doubt," said Brigitte; "but it seems
to me that we have not been ungrateful to him. Besides, it was he who
made the blunder, and I think it rather odd he should now wish to leave
us in the lurch."

"Your reasoning, mademoiselle," said la Peyrade, "might have some
appearance of justice if I were the only barrister in Paris; but as the
streets are black with them, and as, only yesterday, Thuillier himself
spoke of engaging some more important lawyer than myself, I have not the
slightest scruple in refusing to defend him. Now, as to the marriage, in
order that it may not be made the object of another brutal and forcible
demand upon me, I here renounce it in the most formal manner, and
nothing now prevents Mademoiselle Colleville from accepting Monsieur
Felix Phellion and all his advantages."

"As you please, my dear monsieur," said Brigitte, "if that's your last
word. We shall not be at a loss to find a husband for Celeste,--Felix
Phellion or another. But you must permit me to tell you that the reason
you give is not the true one. We can't go faster than the fiddles. If
the marriage were settled to-day, there are the banns to publish; you
have sense enough to know that Monsieur le maire can't marry you before
the formalities are complied with, and before then Thuillier's case will
have been tried."

"Yes," said la Peyrade, "and if I lose the case it will be I who have
sent him to prison,--just as yesterday it was I who brought about the
seizure."

"As for