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any chance to retrieve his broken fortunes--that put him in the running at all. With the others, in such slighting terms referred to by Madame Vic--Monsieur Peloux, a notary of standing, and the Major Gontard, of the Twenty-ninth of the Line--the case was different. It had its sides. "That this worthy lady reasonably may desire again to wed," declared Monsieur Fromagin, actual proprietor of the Epicerie Russe--an establishment liberally patronized by Madame Jolicoeur--"is as true as that when she goes to make her choosings between these estimable gentlemen she cannot make a choice that is wrong." Madame Gauthier, a clear-starcher of position, to whom Monsieur Fromagin thus addressed himself, was less broadly positive. "That is a matter of opinion," she answered; and added: "To go no further than the very beginning, Monsieur should perceive that her choice has exactly fifty chances in the hundred of going wrong: lying, as it does, between a meagre, sallow-faced creature of a death-white baldness, and a fine big pattern of a man, strong and ruddy, with a close-clipped but abundant thatch on his head, and a moustache that admittedly is superb!" "Ah, there speaks the woman!" said Monsieur Fromagin, with a patronizing smile distinctly irritating. "Madame will recognize--if she will but bring herself to look a little beyond the mere outside--that what I have advanced is not a matter of opinion but of fact. Observe: Here is Monsieur Peloux--to whose trifling leanness and aristocratic baldness the thoughtful give no attention--easily a notary in the very first rank. As we all know, his services are sought in cases of the most exigent importance--" "For example," interrupted Madame Gauthier, "the case of the insurance solicitor, in whose countless defraudings my own brother was a sufferer: a creature of a vileness, whose deserts were unnumbered ages of dungeons--and who, thanks to the chicaneries of Monsieur Peloux, at this moment walks free as air!" "It is of the professional duty of advocates," replied Monsieur Fromagin, sententiously, "to defend their clients; on the successful discharge of that duty--irrespective of minor details--depends their fame. Madame neglects the fact that Monsieur Peloux, by his masterly conduct of the case that she specifies, won for himself from his legal colleagues an immense applause." "The more shame to his legal colleagues!" commented Madame Gauthier curtly. "But leaving that a
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