"'Now, Monsieur le Juge,' I said, 'ask Chambardeau himself, ask Mimi Robinson, the grocer's daughter: they'll both tell you if I am not speaking God's own truth.'
"'I have seen them both,' said the judge, 'and they both accuse you.'"
"Now you see, mon vieux," went on Titi, waxing excited, and shaking me by the blouse, "you see I'd been there before, and I knew that the judge was telling a lie as big as himself. I had seen Chambardeau in the passage at the Dépôt, and he had winked at me and telegraphed—you know we had both been in quod before and had learned there how to telegraph with our hands—so he telegraphed: 'I have not been examined yet, and I'll swear we were playing, and I hurt myself; I won't split.' What's more, I had caught sight of Mimi in the witness room, and she would not have been left there if she had already been examined, so I knew it was all lies that the judge was telling just to make me confess. I didn't lose my head, but quite polite I replied:
"'I'm as innocent as an unborn baby, sir, and I only ask you to confront[28] me with Chambardeau and Mimi.'
"'That will come in due time,' said the judge; 'you are not going to teach me how to conduct my examination, are you?'
"'May the Lord Almighty preserve me from such a thought,' I replied, quite lamb-like, and to please him I added, '—a kind, considerate, and just magistrate like you, sir.'
"'That's enough, that's enough,' he says, but I could see that he was pleased.
"He then sent me back to gaol, and said he'd send for me next day. I heard afterwards that Chambardeau was examined after me: he swore on the head of his mother that he had hurt himself by falling with the knife, which he held open in his hand to peel an orange, and that while we were skylarking he slipped on a bit of orange-peel. But the judge told him that he could not possibly have inflicted that wound of his on himself—and to prove it he read the doctor's report. Chambardeau replied that he had always been clumsy with knives, ever since he was two months old; but he overdid it, you know. I've always told him so—he overdid it when he showed the judge a scar on his right arm, and said he had cut himself there while slicing bread when he was two years of age. The judge, of course, tried to make him believe that I had confessed, but Chambardeau, whose temper was rather quick, replied that he knew that was a d——d lie, and so the judge sent him back to gaol. Mimi was fine; she said she had seen nothing of a fight, but that we were skylarking, and that Chambardeau had slipped on some orange-peel and fell on his knife.
"I was examined three times that week, and once the next, and on the third week was 'confronted' with Chambardeau and Mimi. We all stuck to our story, swore that the sergots had told nothing but lies, and everything was going on beautifully until the judge picks up our knives that were lying on his table. One of them was still covered with dried-up blood: it was mine; so the judge says, 'Whose knife is that?' 'Hullo, they've found my knife,' Chambardeau says natural like. 'You are quite sure it belongs to you?' says the judge.