“You herd, then, with vagabonds and evil-doers?”
“You are trying to make me peach. Do you know Judge Roquincourt?”
“I know him a little. He’s rather stern, isn’t he?”
“Judge Roquincourt, he is a good talker. I never heard anyone speak so well and so quickly. A body hasn’t time to understand him. A body can’t answer. There isn’t anybody who speaks one half as well.”
“He kept you in solitary confinement for long months and yet you bear him no grudge. What a humble example of mercy and long-suffering.”
Pied d’Alouette resumed the polishing of his knife-handle. As the work progressed, he became quieter and seemed to recover his peace of mind. Suddenly he demanded:
“Do you know a man called Corbon?”
“Who is he, this Corbon?”
It was too difficult to explain. Pied d’Alouette waved his arm in a vague semicircle that covered a quarter of the horizon. Yet his mind was busy with the man he had just mentioned, for again he repeated:
“Corbon.”