“Truly. It dates from the year one.”
“Of Fraternity? And what has the law one of Fraternity to say to my servant here?”
He indicated the dazed Laurent. The commissary lifted his passionless eyebrows.
“This man is, I understand, a Cagot—(another pastile, Benoît)—a Cagot, sir; and yet he will venture into the public ways, gloveless and without shoes.”
“Thus poisoning what he touches, you will say. Monsieur, it is a superstition. This year one is surely no better than other years the first—than other opening pages to our periodic new ledgers of reform—if we carry forward into it a tyrannical superstition.”
“What has that to do with the matter? This is a man——”
“It is indeed, monsieur,” answered Ned sharply. He was growing impatient of this meaningless arraignment. He had other and more important business to attend to. He looked into the vacuous young face.
“Is not this all inapplicable?” he said. “I tell monsieur that the man is my servant; that we saw a woman suffering ill-treatment; that we went to her assistance humanely and without violence. We are guilty of no assault, no resistance to or outrage against any law, either of the year one or of the year one thousand and one; and I must ask monsieur to discharge us on the simple facts of the case.”
He took, it is to be acknowledged, the wrong way with a fool.
“I know nothing of the year one thousand and one,” said the officer, with feeble irony. “It was before my time.”