A
word to say farewell, you understand!" He looked M. Fille squarely in
the eye.
"If I had to answer M. Jean Jacques on such a matter--and so much at
stake--"
Masson interrupted. "Well, if you like we'll bind your eyes and put wads
in your ears, and you can stay, so that you'll have been in the room all
the time, and yet have heard and seen nothing at all. How is that,
m'sieu'? It's all right, isn't it?"
M. Fille stood petrified for a moment at the audacity of the proposition.
For him, the Clerk of the Court, to be blinded and made ridiculous with
wads in his ears-impossible!
"Grace of Heaven, I would prefer to lie!" he answered quickly. "I will
go into the next room, but I beg that you be brief, monsieur and madame.
You owe it to yourselves and to the situation to be brief, and, if I may
say so, you owe it to me. I am not a practised Ananias."
"As well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, m'sieu'," returned Masson.
"I must beg that you will make your farewells of a minute and no more,"
replied the Clerk of the Court firmly. He took out his watch. "It is
six o'clock. I will come again at three minutes past six. That is long
enough for any farewell--even on the gallows.
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