whole oxen were carried in triumph, ribanded and
decorated as at Gargantuan feasts. Just these men cried louder than
others, turned furiously towards the solitary seat where the poor leper
listened, still and downcast. Yet in the midst of the general uproar,
one voice was raised in his favour, but low, unpractised, less a voice
than a sympathetic murmur, through which was distinguished
vaguely: "Great services to the Corsican population--Considerable
works--Territorial Bank."

He who mumbled thus was a little man in white gaiters, an albino
head, and thin hair in scattered locks. But the interruption of this
unfortunate friend only furnished Le Merquier with a rapid and natural
transition. A hideous smile parted his flabby lips. "The honourable M.
Sarigue mentions the Territorial Bank. We shall be able to answer him."
He seemed in fact to be very familiar with the Paganetti den. In a
few neat and lively phrases he threw the light on to the depths of the
gloomy cave, showed all the traps, the gulfs, the windings, the snares,
like a guide waving his torch above the _oubliettes_ of some sinister
dungeon. He spoke of the fictitious quarries, of the railways on paper,
of the chimeric liners disappearing in their own steam. The frightful
desert of the Taverna was not forgotten, nor the old Genoese castle, the
office of the steamship agency. But what amused the Chamber most was the
story of a swindling ceremony organized by the governor for the piercing
of a tunnel through Monte Rotondo, a gigantic undertaking always in
project, put off from year to year, demanding millions of money and
thousands of workmen, and which was begun in great pomp a week before
the election. His report gave the thing a comic air--the first blow of
the pickaxe given by the candidate in the enormous mountain covered by
ancient forests, the speech of the Prefect, the benediction of the flags
with the cries of "Long live Bernard Jansoulet!" and the two hundred
workmen beginning the task at once, working day and night for a week;
then, when the election was over, leaving the fragments of rock heaped
round the abandoned excavation for a laughing-stock--another asylum
for the terrible banditti. The game was over. After having extorted the
shareholders' money for so long, the Territorial Bank this time was
used as a means to swindle the electors of their votes. "Furthermore,
gentlemen, another detail, with which perhaps I should have begun and
spared you th