"Not at all," said Thuillier, carelessly. "I've come about that cursed
pamphlet. Is there ever any end to your legal bothers? I was summoned
here this morning, but I don't regret it, as it gives me the happy
chance of meeting you."

"I, too," said la Peyrade, tying up his bundle. "I am very glad to see
you, but I must leave you now; I have an appointment, and I suppose you
want to do your business at once."

"I have done it," said Thuillier.

"Did you speak to Olivier Vinet, that mortal enemy of yours? he sits in
that court," asked la Peyrade.

"No," said Thuillier, naming another official.

"Well, that's queer!" said the barrister; "that fellow must have the
gift of ubiquity; he has been all the morning in the fifth court-room,
and has just this minute given a judgment on a case I pleaded."

Thuillier colored, and got out of his hobble as best he could. "Oh, hang
it!" he said; "those men in gowns are all alike, I don't know one from
another."

La Peyrade shrugged his shoulders and said aloud, but as if to himself:
"Always the same; crafty, crooked, never straightforward."

"Whom are you talking about?" asked Thuillier, rather nonplussed.

"Why, of you, my dear fellow, who take me for an imbecile, as if I and
the whole world didn't know that your pamphlet business came to an end
two weeks ago. Why, then, summon you to court?"

"Well, I was sent for," said Thuillier, with embarrassment; "something
about registry fees,--it is all Greek to me, I can't comprehend their
scrawls."

"And they chose," said la Peyrade, "precisely the very day when the
Moniteur, announcing the dissolution of the Chamber, made you think
about being a candidate for the 12th arrondissement."

"Why not?" asked Thuillier, "what has my candidacy to do with the fees I
owe to the court?"

"I'll tell you," said la Peyrade, dryly. "The court is a thing
essentially amiable and complaisant. 'Tiens!' it said to itself, 'here's
this good Monsieur Thuillier going to be a candidate for the Chamber;
how hampered he'll be by his attitude to his ex-friend Monsieur de la
Peyrade, with whom he wishes now he hadn't quarrelled. I'll summon him
for fees he doesn't owe; that will bring him to the Palais where la
Peyrade comes daily; and in that way he can meet him by chance, and so
avoid taking a step which would hurt his self-love."

"Well, there you are mistaken!" cried Thuillier, breaking the ice. "I
used so little craft, as you call it, that I've