“If he really were Colonel Chabert, would not that impudent rascal Simonnin have felt the leather of his boot in the right place when he pretended to be deaf?” said Desroches, regarding this remark as more conclusive than Godeschal’s.
“Since nothing is settled,” said Boucard, “let us all agree to go to the upper boxes of the Francais and see Talma in ‘Nero.’ Simonnin may go to the pit.”
And thereupon the head clerk sat down at his table, and the others followed his example.
“Given in June eighteen hundred and fourteen (in words),” said Godeschal. “Ready?”
“Yes,” replied the two copying-clerks and the engrosser, whose pens forthwith began to creak over the stamped paper, making as much noise in the office as a hundred cockchafers imprisoned by schoolboys in paper cages.
“And we hope that my lords on the Bench,” the extemporizing clerk went on. “Stop! I must read my sentence through again. I do not understand it myself.”
“Forty-six (that must often happen) and three forty-nines,” said Boucard.
“We hope,” Godeschal began again, after reading all through the document, “that my lords on the Bench will not be less magnanimous than the august author of the decree, and that they will do justice against the miserable claims of the acting committee of the chief Board of the Legion of Honor by interpreting the law in the wide sense we have here set forth——”
“Monsieur Godeschal, wouldn’t you like a glass of water?” said the little messenger.
“That imp of a boy!” said Boucard. “Here, get on your double-soled shanks-mare, take this packet, and spin off to the Invalides.”