"When it is a question of a professional secret, yes. Where should we be if the lawyer, the notary, the doctor, the confessor, the tailor, could accept compromises on this point of doctrine? It would be anarchy, simply, and in the end it would be the interest of society that would suffer."
The agent, who had no time to lose, began to be impatient.
"I will tell you," he said, "that the tailor, however important his profession may be, is not placed exactly as the doctor or confessor. Have you not a book in which you write your customers' orders?"
"Certainly."
"So that if you persevere in a theory, pushing it to an extreme, I need only to go to the commissioner of your quarter, who, in virtue of the power of the law conferred upon him, will seize your books."
"That would be by violence, and my responsibility would be at an end."
"And in these books the judge would see to whom you have furnished trousers of this stuff. It would only remain then to discover in whose interest you have wished to escape the investigations of the law."
Saying this, he took from his pocket a small box, and taking out a piece of paper, he took from it a button to which adhered a piece of navy blue stuff.
Valerius, who was not in the least moved by the threat of the commissioner, for he was a man to brave martyrdom, looked at the box curiously. When the agent displayed the button, a movement of great surprise escaped him.
"You see," the agent exclaimed, "that you know this cloth!"