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"Yes," cried the three writers. It all went all together, the appeal, the gossip, and the conspiracy. "Given in Here, Daddy Boucard, what is the date of the order? We must dot our i's and cross our t's, by Jingo! it helps to fill the pages." "By Jingo!" repeated one of the copying clerks before Boucard, the head clerk, could reply.
A Norman ought not to write out an appeal without thought. It is the 'Shoulder arms! of the law." "Given in in?" asked Godeschal. "Tell me when, Boucard." "June 1814," replied the head clerk, without looking up from his work. A knock at the office door interrupted the circumlocutions of the prolix document.
The sudden removal of the dirty wig which the poor man wore to hide this gash gave the two lawyers no inclination to laugh, so horrible to behold was this riven skull. The first idea suggested by the sight of this old wound was, "His intelligence must have escaped through that cut." "If this is not Colonel Chabert, he is some thorough-going trooper!" thought Boucard.
He also informed him that almost all the witnesses to the facts recorded under these affidavits were still to be found at Eylau, in Prussia, and that the woman to whom M. le Comte Chabert owed his life was still living in a suburb of Heilsberg. "This looks like business," cried Derville, when Boucard had given him the substance of the letter.
He took up the letter and opened it; but he could not read it; it was written in German. "Boucard, go yourself and have this letter translated, and bring it back immediately," said Derville, half opening his study door, and giving the letter to the head clerk.
"If he really were Colonel Chabert, would not that impudent rascal Simonnin have felt the leather of his boot in the right place when he pretended to be deaf?" said Desroches, regarding this remark as more conclusive than Godeschal's. "Since nothing is settled," said Boucard, "let us all agree to go to the upper boxes of the Francais and see Talma in 'Nero. Simonnin may go to the pit."
"Monsieur," said Boucard, "will you have the kindness to leave your name, so that M. Derville may know " "Chabert." "The Colonel who was killed at Eylau?" asked Hure, who, having so far said nothing, was jealous of adding a jest to all the others. "The same, monsieur," replied the good man, with antique simplicity. And he went away. "Whew!" "Done brown!" "Poof!" "Oh!" "Ah!" "Boum!"
"Monsieur Godeschal, wouldn't you like a glass of water?" said the little messenger. "That imp of a boy!" said Boucard. "Here, get on your double-soled shanks-mare, take this packet, and spin off to the Invalides." "Here set forth," Godeschal went on.
The attorney clapped his hand into the Colonel's, saw him to the stairs, and held a light for him. "Boucard," said Derville to his head clerk, "I have just listened to a tale that may cost me five and twenty louis. If I am robbed, I shall not regret the money, for I shall have seen the most consummate actor of the day."
"What do you think of that for a cracked pot?" said Simonnin, without waiting till the old man had shut the door. "He looks as if he had been buried and dug up again," said a clerk. "He is some colonel who wants his arrears of pay," said the head clerk. "No, he is a retired concierge," said Godeschal. "I bet you he is a nobleman," cried Boucard.
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