“Now we come to Cocoleu.”
“Ah the wretch!” cried Anthony.
“You know him?”
“How could I help knowing him, when I lived all my life here at Boiscoran in the service of master’s uncle?”
“Then what kind of a man is he?”
“An idiot, sir or, as they here call it, an innocent, who has Saint Vitus dance into the bargain, and epilepsy moreover.”
“Then it is perfectly notorious that he is imbecile?”
“Yes, sir, although I have heard people insist that he is not quite so stupid as he looks, and that, as they say here, he plays the ass in order to get his oats”—
M. de Chandore interrupted him, and said,—
“On this subject Dr. Seignebos can give you all the information you may want: he kept Cocoleu for nearly two years at his own house.”