rue that Marianne was sufficiently audacious to have
brought about this coup de theatre? No, there was some error. The stupid
zeal of some subordinate officer was manifested in this outrage. Some
cowardly charge had perhaps been made against him at the prefecture.
Every man who crosses a street has so many enemies that look at him as
he passes as if they would spy on him! There are so many undeclared
hatreds crawling in the rotten depths of this Parisian bog! One fine
morning one feels one's self stung in the heel. It is nothing: only
some anonymous gossip; some unknown person taking revenge!

At the prefecture, they would doubtless inform Guy as to the cause of
the attack: in questioning him, he would himself certainly be permitted
to interrogate. He was stunned on arriving at the clerk's office to find
that they took his description, just as they would that of a common
offender, a night-walker or a rascal. He wished to enter a protest and
became annoyed. He flew into a rage for a moment, then he reflected that
there was nothing to be done but to submit to the bites of the iron
teeth of the police routine in which he was suddenly entangled. They
searched his pockets and he felt their vile hands graze his skin. He
experienced a strongly rebellious sentiment and notwithstanding his
present enforced calm, from time to time he demanded to see the Prefect
of Police, the Chief of the Municipal Police, the _Juge d'Instruction_,
he did not know whom, but at least some one who was responsible.

"You have my card, send my card to Monsieur Jouvenet; he knows me!"

They made no reply.

The Commissioner who had arrested him was not there. Guy found himself
in the presence of what were as pieces of human machinery, working
silently, without noise of wheels, and caring for his protests no more
than they did for the wind that blew through the corridors.

"See, on my honor, I am not a rascal!" he said. "What have I done? I
have stupidly passed this bit of red ribbon into my buttonhole. Well!
that is an offence, it is not a crime! People are not arrested for that!
I will pay the fine, if fine there is! You are not going to keep me here
with thieves?"

In that jail, he endeavored to preserve his appearance as a fashionable
elegant and an ironical man of the world, treating his misadventure in a
spirit of haughty disdain; but his overstrained nerves led him to act
with a sort of cold fury that gave him the desire to openly oppose, as