l;--but then he is a thorough fool, a most unmitigated,
and unmitigatable fool; the fool of fools, a finished fool, the
pink of fools; a most preposterous, backwards-going, crab-like
fool; a filthy fool; an idiot, sir, without either parts or particle
of ambition; an ape, an owl that flits about by day; a bat, and a
bad bat, that flits from tavern to sty; chief of the devil's
nightingales; a raven that, roving to foul roosts, goes beating
the bosom of the night; a soul that loves the darkness; a mole,
sir, a blind mole; a piece of animated perversity, a creature
that persists to go astray."

"Where has he strayed to now?" demanded the notary.

"Into the hands of justice, perhaps;" was the fierce reply: "into
the grip of the law; up to the foot of the gallows; on to the hill
of my extreme disgrace."

"Where is he, where can I find him? tell me only where," cried
Veuillot.

"Where! let echo answer,--would you wish to hunt him?" said the
advocate, mocking. "Did you ever gallop, sir, after a hedgehog? have
you assisted to draw a badger? I am badgered by him, and will blame
him, ay, ban him, for he is my curse, my bane; why should I not
curse him as Noah cursed that foul whelp Canaan? Beshrew him for
a block-head, a little black-browed beetle, a blot of ink, a shifting
shadow, a roving rat, a mouse, yes, sir, a very mouse, that creeps
in and out of its hole when the old cat is away. Away, Mr. Notary,
away; go, good Monsieur Veuillot. There are more conceptions in
man than he has yet expressed either in statutes or in testaments.
Go; you are a deed-drawer; I'll be a deed doer: I'll do, I'll do,--I
do not know what I'll do, but something shall be done. He shall be
shaken over perdition; sent to grind in the prison house; sold into
slavery:--fool! he shall be banished to Caughnawaga, or to
Loretto;--the further the better; he shall be sent to the Lake of
the Two Mountains, sir, or to Saint Regis to learn the war-whoop
and gallant the squaws. You smile:--but to your errand, Veuillot;
it is not known where my son is: I saw him last night, may I never
see him again! Then, dying, my old age, perhaps, may close in
peace: not else, not else."

The notary departed, but the exasperated lawyer still conversed
with himself. "I cannot decently die," he said, "any more than I
can devoutly live, pricked through the very reins and kidneys with
that skewer. Alas! he is my goad, my thorn in the flesh, the
messenger of satan sent to buf