“Ah, this explains it all! Now we know why old Bourget has sulked like a bear with a sore head! A fine end for Poissy and its grandeur indeed! Shameful! Absolutely disgraceful!”
“Monsieur Leroux,” interrupted M. Georges, gravely, “be good enough to explain yourself.”
For the little lawyer was positively dancing with excitement.
“Not a son-in-law to be so proud of, and to fling at all our heads, after all!” he cried. “And to have kept it so secret! When I opened the paper, I thought I must be dreaming. Monsieur de Beaudrillart is in prison for stealing.”
The doctor ejaculated an amazed oath. M. Georges turned crimson and then white, and made a threatening step towards Leroux. He had never fought with any one in his peaceable life, but at this moment he felt as if he must kill the miserable little slanderer. Leroux hastily stepped back, and with triumphant fingers unfolded the newspaper and pointed to a paragraph.
“See for yourselves, then, if you do not believe; it is no invention of mine. There. Read the sentence aloud, Monsieur Georges. ‘Yesterday the Baron de Beaudrillart was arrested in Paris on a charge of stealing the sum of two hundred thousand francs, the property of Monsieur Lemaire, nephew by marriage to the defunct Comte de Cadanet.’ Oh, I know it by heart already. Read, read, doctor. This explains, eh? Was there ever anything so disgraceful? This comes of your barons, your old families, your blue blood! A thief—the owner of Poissy a thief! Why, it disgraces us all, the whole arrondissement!” And M. Leroux spat on the ground to express his sense of personal pollution.
Meanwhile, with a heart wrung with distress, M. Georges read the terrible words, and the doctor, spectacles on the point of his nose, devoured them over his shoulder. When he had gone twice through them, M. Georges dropped his hand and the newspaper by his side, and stared at the ground, speechless.
“Well, what do you say now?” said Leroux, sidling up. “A pretty black business, isn’t it? A common thief!”
“The poor women!” muttered the doctor.
“Oh, come, they’ve had their day, and it’s our turn now. This will bring down their starch a bit. And as for old Bourget, with his eternal Poissy this and Poissy that, as if the whole world had been made on purpose to carry Poissy, we sha’n’t be choked with his talk any more. This puts an end to a good deal, for I should like to know why he should be picked out to be mayor, except because he was father-in-law to this fine gentleman at Poissy? Not such a desirable connection now, not one to—Sacrée! help! murder!”