Then I'll dance at your wedding and weep at your tomb--so there!"
How easy he made the way for the little Clerk of the Court! "Defamation
of character"--could there possibly be a better opening for what he had
promised Judge Carcasson he would say!
"Ah, Monsieur Masson," very officially and decorously replied M. Fille,
"but is it defamation of character? If the thing is true, then what is
the judgment? It goes against you--so there!" There was irony in the last
words.
"If what thing is true?" sharply asked the mastercarpenter, catching at
the fringe of the idea in M. Fille's mind. "What thing?"
"Ah, but it is true, for I saw it! Yes, alas! I saw it with my own eyes.
By accident of course; but there it was--absolute, uncompromising, deadly
and complete."
It was a happy moment for the little Clerk of the Court when he could, in
such an impromptu way, coin a phrase, or a set of adjectives, which would
bear inspection of purists of the language. He loved to talk, though he
did not talk a great deal, but he made innumerable conversations in his
mind, and that gave him facility when he did speak. He had made
conversations with George Masson in his mind since yesterday, when he
gave his promise to Judge Carcasson; but none of them was like the real
conversation now taking place. It was all the impression of the moment,
while the phrases in his mind had been wonderfully logical things which,
from an intellectual standpoint, would have delighted the man whose cause
he was now engaged in defending.
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