their downcast eyes and their humble
looks I guessed them to be the victims of oppression.

Each barrister could speak for two hours.

The farmer's advocate spoke for thirty minutes, which he occupied by
putting in the various receipts bearing the count's signature up to the
time when he had dismissed the farmer, because he would not prostitute
his daughters to him. He then continued, speaking with calm precision, to
point out the anachronisms and contradictions in the count's books (which
made his client a debtor), and stated that his client was in a position
to prosecute the two forgers who had been employed to compass the ruin of
an honest family, whose only crime was poverty. He ended his speech by an
appeal for costs in all the suits, and for compensation for loss of time
and defamation of character.

The harangue of the count's advocate would have lasted more than two
hours if the court had not silenced him. He indulged in a torrent of
abuse against the other barrister, the experts in hand-writing, and the
peasant, whom he threatened with a speedy consignment to the galleys.

The pleadings would have wearied me if I had been a blind man, but as it
was I amused myself by a scrutiny of the various physiognomies before me.
My host's face remained smiling and impudent through it all.

The pleadings over, the court was cleared, and we awaited the sentence in
the adjoining room.

The peasant and his family sat in a corner apart, sad, sorry, and
comfortless, with no friend to speak a consoling word, while the count
was surrounded by a courtly throng, who assured him that with such a case
he could not possibly lose; but that if the judges did deliver judgment
against him he should pay the peasant, and force him to prove the alleged
forgery.

I listened in profound silence, sympathising with the countryman rather
than my host, whom I believed to be a thorough-paced scoundrel, though I
took care not to say so.

Count Torres, who was a deadly foe to all prudence and discretion, asked
me my opinion of the case, and I whispered that I thought the count
should lose, even if he were in the right, on account of the infamous
apostrophes of his counsel, who deserved to have his ears cut off or to
stand in the pillory for six months.

"And the client too," said Tomes aloud; but nobody had heard what I had
said.

After we had waited for an hour the clerk of the court came in with two
papers, one of which he gave to the pe