“Madame Flamaran comes from Forez?”
“Just so; I stayed there a fortnight, fourteen days exactly, in the middle of term-time, and brought back Sidonie. Bourges is a nice town.”
“Yes, in summer.”
“Plenty of trees. I remember a grand action I won there. One of my learned colleagues was against me. We had both written opinions, diametrically opposed, of course. But I beat him—my word, yes!”
“I dare say.”
“My boy, there was nothing left of him. Do you know the case?”
“No.”
“A magnificent case! My notes must be somewhere about; I will get them out for you.”
The good man beamed. Evidently he had not had a talk all day, and felt he must expand and let himself out to somebody. I appeared in the nick of time, and came in for all his honey. He rose, went to a bookcase, ran his eye along a shelf, took down a volume, and began, in a low tone: “‘Cooperation is the mighty lever upon which an effete society relies to extricate itself from its swaddling-clothes and take a loftier flight.’ Tut, tut! What stuff is this? I beg your pardon. I was reading from a work on moral philosophy. Where the deuce is my opinion?”
He found it and, text in hand, began a long account of the action, with names, dates, moments of excitement, and many quotations in extenso.