Papa Chibou did not sleep well. He did not sleep at all, in fact, and when they marched him into the inclosure where sat the other nondescript offenders against the law he was shaken and utterly wretched. He was overawed by the great court room and the thick atmosphere of seriousness that hung over it.
He did pluck up enough courage to ask a guard, “Where is my lawyer, Monsieur Dufayel?”
“Oh, he’s late, as usual,” replied the guard. And then, for he was a waggish fellow, he added, “If you’re lucky he won’t come at all.”
Papa Chibou sank down on the prisoner’s bench and raised his eyes to the tribunal opposite. His very marrow was chilled by the sight of The Terrible Trio. The chief judge, Bertouf, was a vast puff of a man, who swelled out of his judicial chair like a poisonous fungus. His black robe was familiar with spilled brandy, and his dirty judicial bib was askew. His face was bibulous and brutal, and he had the wattles of a turkey gobbler. Judge Goblin, on his right, looked to have mummified; he was at least a hundred years old and had wrinkled parchment skin and red-rimmed eyes that glittered like the eyes of a cobra. Judge Perouse was one vast jungle of tangled grizzled whisker, from the midst of which projected a cockatoo’s beak of a nose; he looked at Papa Chibou and licked his lips with a long pink tongue. Papa Chibou all but fainted; he felt no bigger than a bean, and less important; as for his judges, they seemed enormous monsters.
The first case was called, a young swaggering fellow who had stolen an orange from a push-cart.
“Ah, Monsieur Thief,” rumbled Judge Bertouf with a scowl, “you are jaunty now. Will you be so jaunty a year from today when you are released from prison? I rather think not. Next case.”
Papa Chibou’s heart pumped with difficulty. A year for an orange—and he had stolen a man! His eyes roved round the room and he saw two guards carrying in something which they stood before the judges. It was Napoleon.
A guard tapped Papa Chibou on the shoulder. “You’re next,” he said.
“But my lawyer, Monsieur Dufayel——” began Papa Chibou.
“You’re in hard luck,” said the guard, “for here he comes.”