ot I, but you, who
will be the murderer! You want to be head-clerk of your room and officer
of the Legion of Honor?"

"That in the first place, Chief!" replied Marneffe, with a bow.

"You shall be all that, only soothe your wife and dismiss these
fellows."

"Nay, nay!" said Marneffe knowingly. "These gentlemen must draw up their
report as eyewitnesses to the fact; without that, the chief evidence in
my case, where should I be? The higher official ranks are chokeful of
rascalities. You have done me out of my wife, and you have not promoted
me, Monsieur le Baron; I give you only two days to get out of the
scrape. Here are some letters--"

"Some letters!" interrupted Hulot.

"Yes; letters which prove that you are the father of the child my wife
expects to give birth to.--You understand? And you ought to settle on my
son a sum equal to what he will lose through this bastard. But I will
be reasonable; this does not distress me, I have no mania for paternity
myself. A hundred louis a year will satisfy me. By to-morrow I must be
Monsieur Coquet's successor and see my name on the list for promotion in
the Legion of Honor at the July fetes, or else--the documentary evidence
and my charge against you will be laid before the Bench. I am not so
hard to deal with after all, you see."

"Bless me, and such a pretty woman!" said the Justice of the Peace to
the police constable. "What a loss to the world if she should go mad!"

"She is not mad," said the constable sententiously. The police is always
the incarnation of scepticism.--"Monsieur le Baron Hulot has been caught
by a trick," he added, loud enough for Valerie to hear him.

Valerie shot a flash from her eye which would have killed him on
the spot if looks could effect the vengeance they express. The
police-officer smiled; he had laid a snare, and the woman had fallen
into it. Marneffe desired his wife to go into the other room and clothe
herself decently, for he and the Baron had come to an agreement on all
points, and Hulot fetched his dressing-gown and came out again.

"Gentlemen," said he to the two officials, "I need not impress on you to
be secret."

The functionaries bowed.

The police-officer rapped twice on the door; his clerk came in, sat down
at the "bonheur-du-jour," and wrote what the constable dictated to him
in an undertone. Valerie still wept vehemently. When she was dressed,
Hulot went into the other room and put on his clothes. Meanwhile the
report