"If he wrote it," I interrupted. "Was he not condemned only on his handwriting?"
"Yes," replied my elderly friend, whose head I had thought level. "But to discover the truth one had to resort to all sort of ruses in order to convict him and convince the public."
"Why did the generals want to condemn him, if he was not guilty?" I asked.
"They had to condemn some one," said my friend, who was beginning to be dreadfully bored. "The generals found Dreyfus guilty, therefore Dreyfus was guilty without doubt."
"Do you think that if an injustice has been done it will create a great indignation in other countries and will affect the coming Exposition?" I inquired.
"Ah," said my wise friend, "that is another thing. I think myself that it would be prudent to do something toward revising the judgment; everything ought to be done to make the Exposition a success."
And there the matter rested.
I doubt if his friendship stood this test. Any one who takes Dreyfus's defense is looked upon as an enemy in the camp. I devour the papers. Le Matin seems to be the only unprejudiced one. J. reads the others, but I have no patience with all their cooked-up and melodramatic stories.
On the 11th of September the King of Siam gave the diplomats an opportunity to meet him at a reception in the new and beautiful Siamese Legation.
The King is good-looking, and tall for a Siamese. He talked English perfectly and showed the greatest interest in everything he had seen. When he left Paris a few days later he bought three hundred dozen pairs of silk stockings for his three hundred wives. Quite a sum for the royal budget! One can't imagine bigamy going much further than that, can one? And he is only forty-two years old!