n rose from the whole table at this verse, which was
roared out in a lugubrious voice. Noisy shouts, rapping of knives upon
tumblers and bottles, and exclamations of all kinds called the orator to
order.

"Monsieur Marillac," exclaimed the public prosecutor, in a joking tone,
"it seems to me that you have wandered from the subject."

The artist looked at him with an astonished air.

"Had I anything in particular to say to you?" he asked; "if so, I will
sustain my point. Only do me the kindness to tell me what it was about."

"It was on the subject of this man Lambernier," whispered the notary to
him, as he poured out a glass of wine. "Courage! you improvise better
than Berryer! If you exert yourself, the public prosecutor will be beaten
in no time."

Marillac thanked his neighbor with a smile and a nod of the head, which
signified: "Trust me." He then emptied his glass with the recklessness
that had characterized his drinking for some time, but, strangely enough,
the libation, instead of putting the finishing stroke to his drunkenness,
gave his mind, for the time being, a sort of lucidity.

"The accusation," he continued, with the coolness of an old lawyer,
"rests upon two grounds: first, the presence without cause of the accused
upon the spot where the crime was committed; second, the nature of the
weapon used.--Two simple but peremptory replies will make the scaffold
which has been erected upon this double supposition fall to the ground.
First, Lambernier had a rendezvous at this place, and at the exact hour
when this crime with which he is accused took place; this will be proved
by a witness, and will be established by evidence in a most indisputable
manner. His presence will thus be explained without its being interpreted
in any way against him. Second, the public prosecutor has admitted that
the carrying of a weapon which Lambernier may have been in the habit of
using in his regular trade could not be used as an argument against him,
and for that same reason could not be used as an argument in favor of
premeditation; now, this is precisely the case in question. This weapon
was neither a sword, bayonet, nor stiletto, nothing that the fertile
imagination of the public prosecutor could imagine; it was a simple tool
used by the accused in his profession, the presence of which in his
pocket is as easily understood as that of a snuff-box in the pocket of my
neighbor, the notary, who takes twenty pinches of snuff a m