he a virgin?"

"I never felt any curiosity about it either before or after; therefore,
sir, I do not know."

"Her mother claims reparation, and the law is against you."

"I can give no reparation to the mother; and as for the law I will obey
it when it has been explained to me, and when I am convinced that I have
been guilty against it."

"You are already convinced. Do you imagine that a man who gets an honest
girl with child in a house of which he is an inmate does not transgress
the laws of society?"

"I admit that to be the case when the mother is deceived; but when that
same mother sends her daughter to the room of a young man, are we not
right in supposing that she is disposed to accept peacefully all the
accidents which may result from such conduct?"

"She sent her daughter to your room only to wait on you."

"And she has waited on me as I have waited on her if she sends her to my
room this evening, and if it is agreeable to Mimi, I will certainly serve
her as well as I can; but I will have nothing to do with her against her
will or out of my room, the rent of which I have always paid punctually."

"You may say what you like, but you must pay the fine."

"I will say what I believe to be just, and I will pay nothing; for there
can be no fine where there is no law transgressed. If I am sentenced to
pay I shall appeal even to the last jurisdiction and until I obtain
justice, for believe me, sir, I know that I am not such an awkward and
cowardly fellow as to refuse my caresses to a pretty woman who pleases
me, and comes to provoke them in my own room, especially when I feel
myself certain of the mother's agreement."

I signed the interrogatory after I had read it carefully, and went away.
The next day the lieutenant of police sent for me, and after he had heard
me, as well as the mother and the daughter, he acquitted me and condemned
Madame Quinson in costs. But I could not after all resist the tears of
Mimi, and her entreaties for me to defray the expenses of her
confinement. She was delivered of a boy, who was sent to the Hotel Dieu
to be brought up at the nation's expense. Soon afterwards Mimi ran away
from her mother's house, and she appeared on the stage at St. Laurent's
Fair. Being unknown, she had no difficulty in finding a lover who took
her for a maiden. I found her very pretty on the stage.

"I did not know," I said to her, "that you were a musician."

"I am a musician about as much as all my co