"Poor Gervaise!" muttered Aubry. "She was quite right when she said that she was so confused she didn't know what answers she made; she has confessed to twenty-two. However, nineteen it is."
"And so," said the lieutenant criminal, "and so, my buck, you are charged with seducing a minor child. Ha! ha! ha!"
"Ha! ha! ha!" echoed Aubry, joining in the judge's hilarity.
"With aggravating circumstances," continued the clerk, mingling his yelping tones with the jovial voices of the magistrate and the student.
"With aggravating circumstances," repeated the former.
"The devil!" exclaimed Jacques. "I should like very much to know what they were."
"As the complainant remained deaf to all the entreaties and wiles of the accused for six months—"
"For six months?" Jacques interposed. "Pardon, monsieur, I think there's a mistake there."
"For six months, monsieur, so it is written," replied the man in black, in a tone which admitted no rejoinder.
"So be it! six months it is," said Jacques; "but in truth Gervaise was quite right when she said—"