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And he went away muttering: "That Pyrot! I suspected he would come to a bad end." A moment later General Panther appeared before Greatauk. "Sir," said he, "I have just examined the business of the eighty thousand trusses of hay. There is no evidence against Pyrot." "Let it be found," answered Greatauk. "Justice requires it. Have Pyrot arrested at once."
As, at the entrance to the Rue St. Orberosia, he was posting one of his squares of paper bearing the words: Pyrot is innocent, Maubec is guilty, the riotous crowd showed signs of the most violent anger. They called after him, "Traitor, thief, rascal, scoundrel."
The thought that there existed in his country a Pyrot, a Colonel Hastaing, a Colomban, a Kerdanic, a Phoenix, spoilt his hyacinths, his violin, his heaven, and his earth, all nature, and even his dinner with the Mesdemoiselles Helbivore!
Eighty thousand trusses of hay intended for the cavalry had disappeared and not a trace of them was to be found. Greatauk exclaimed at once: "It must be Pyrot who has stolen them!" He remained in thought for some time and said: "The more I think of it the more I am convinced that Pyrot has stolen those eighty thousand trusses of hay.
Having been elected a Deputy and chosen to be the leader of the new majority, comrade Larrivee was appointed by the Chamber and public opinion to the Premiership. He showed himself an energetic defender of the military tribunals that had condemned Pyrot.
General van Julep, though endowed with high military virtues, was not intelligent enough to employ the subtle conduct and exquisite methods of Greatauk. He thought, like General Panther, that tangible proofs against Pyrot were necessary, that they could never ave too many of them, that they could never have even enough.
The mass of the Penguins were ignorant of doubt: it believed in Pyrot's guilt and this conviction immediately became one of its chief national beliefs and an essential truth in its patriotic creed. Pyrot was tried secretly and condemned. General Panther immediately went to the Minister of War to tell him the result. "Luckily," said he, "the judges were certain, for they had no proofs."
He opened it, and with a sigh took out a bundle of bills which, with hesitating hands, he gave to the pious Agaric. "Do not doubt it, dear Cornemuse," said the latter, thrusting the papers into the pocket of his overcoat, "this Pyrot affair has been sent us by God for the glory and exaltation of the Church of Penguinia." "I pray that you may be right!" sighed the monk of Conils.
So that public opinion was hardly mistaken in regarding all the Socialist leaders as pernicious Anti-Pyrotists. As for the vast masses in whose name they spoke and whom they represented as far as speech can express the impossible as for the proletarians whose thought is difficult to know and who do not know it themselves, it seemed that the Pyrot affair did not interest them.
Hitherto blinded by fear, incautious and stupid before the bands of Friar Douillard and the partisans of Prince Crucho, the Republicans at last opened their eyes and grasped the real meaning of the Pyrot affair.
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