Jeanne drew herself up with dignity. “I’m afraid I don’t quite understand you, Mr. Mayor,” she replied in freezing accents. “There’s been no little mistake on my part that I’m aware of.”
“No, no, no,” said the Mayor apologetically; “but on somebody else’s there has. You see it happened in this way: this here young fellow was going round the town last night; and he’d been dining, I should say, and he was carrying on rather free. I will only say so much in your presence, [p 40] that he was carrying on decidedly free. So the town-guard happened to come across him, and he was very high and very haughty, he was, and wouldn’t give his name nor yet his address—as a gentleman should, you know, when he’s been dining and carrying on free. So our fellows just ran him in—and it took the pick of them all their time to do it, too. Well, then, the other chap who was in prison—the gentleman who obliged you yesterday, you know—what does he do but slip out and run away in the middle of all the row and confusion; and very inconsiderate and ungentlemanly it was of him to take advantage of us in that mean way, just when we wanted a little sympathy and forbearance. Well, the Sheriff comes this morning to fetch out his man for execution, and he knows there’s only one man to execute, and he sees there’s only one man in prison, [p 41] and it all seems as simple as A B C—he never was much of a mathematician, you know—so he fetches our friend here along, quite gaily. And—and that’s how it came about, you see; hinc illæ lachrymæ, as the Roman poet has it. So now I shall just give this young fellow a good talking to, and discharge him with a caution; and we sha’n’t require you any more to-day, Jeanne, my girl.”
“Now, look here, Mr. Mayor,” said Jeanne severely, “you utterly fail to grasp the situation in its true light. All these little details may be interesting in themselves, and doubtless the press will take note of them; but they are entirely beside the point. With the muddleheadedness of your officials (which I have frequently remarked upon) I have nothing whatever to do. All I know is, that this young gentleman has been formally handed over to me [p 42] for execution, with all the necessary legal requirements; and executed he has got to be. When my duty has been performed, you are at liberty to reopen the case if you like; and any ‘little mistake’ that may have occurred through your stupidity you can then rectify at your leisure. Meantime, you’ve no locus standi here at all; in fact, you’ve no business whatever lumbering up my scaffold. So shut up and clear out.”
“Now, Jeanne, do be reasonable,” implored the Mayor. “You women are so precise. You never will make any allowance for the necessary margin of error in things.”
“If I were to allow the necessary margin for all your errors, Mayor,” replied Jeanne coolly, “the edition would have to be a large-paper one, and even then the text would stand a poor chance. And now, if [p 43] you don’t allow me the necessary margin to swing my axe, there may be another ‘little mistake’——”
But at this point a hubbub arose at the foot of the scaffold, and Jeanne, leaning over, perceived sundry tall fellows, clad in the livery of the Seigneur, engaged in dispersing the municipal guard by the agency of well-directed kicks, applied with heartiness and anatomical knowledge. A moment later, there strode on to the scaffold, clad in black velvet, and adorned with his gold chain of office, the stately old seneschal of the Château, evidently in a towering passion.
“Now, mark my words, you miserable little bladder-o’-lard,” he roared at the Mayor (whose bald head certainly shone provokingly in the morning sun), “see if I don’t take this out of your skin presently!” And he passed on to where the youth was [p 44] still kneeling, apparently quite absorbed in the view.
“My lord,” he said firmly though respectfully, “your hair-brained folly really passes all bounds. Have you entirely lost your head?”