nd
encouraging me; doctors of law have a moral right to this touch of the
brush.

"It will be all right, Monsieur Mouillard, never fear. No one has been
refused a degree this morning."

"I am not afraid, Michu."

"When I say 'no one,' there was one refused--you never heard the
like. Just imagine--a little to the right, please, Monsieur
Mouillard--imagine, I say, a candidate who knew absolutely nothing. That
is nothing extraordinary. But this fellow, after the examination was
over, recommended himself to mercy. 'Have compassion on me, gentlemen,'
he said, 'I only wish to be a magistrate!' Capital, isn't it?"

"Yes, yes."

"You don't seem to think so. You don't look like laughing this morning."

"No, Michu, every one has his bothers, you know."

"I said to myself as I looked at you just now, Monsieur Mouillard has
some bother. Button up all the way, if you please, for a doctor's essay;
if-you-please. It's a heartache, then?"

"Something of the kind."

He shrugged his shoulders and went before me, struggling with an
asthmatic chuckle, until we came to the room set apart for the
examination.

It was the smallest and darkest of all, and borrowed its light from
a street which had little enough to spare, and spared as little as it
could. On the left against the wall is a raised desk for the candidate.
At the end, on a platform before a bookcase, sit the six examiners
in red robes, capes with three bands of ermine, and gold-laced caps.
Between the candidate's desk and the door is a little enclosure for
spectators, of whom there were about thirty when I entered.

My performance, which had a chance of being brilliant, was only fair.

The three first examiners had read my essay, especially M. Flamaran, who
knew it well and had enjoyed its novel and audacious propositions. He
pursed up his mouth preparatory to putting the first question, like an
epicure sucking a ripe fruit. And when at length he opened it, amid
the general silence, it was to carry the discussion at once up to
such heights of abstraction that a good number of the audience, not
understanding a word of it, stealthily made for the door.

Each successive answer put fresh spirit into him.

"Very good," he murmured, "very good; let us carry it a step farther.
Now supposing--"

And, the demon of logic at his heels, we both went off like inspired
lunatics into a world of hypotheses where never man had set foot. He
was examining no longer, he was inventi