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Updated: June 26, 2025
"This Doctor Custos," muttered Van Tricasse, "is decidedly a dangerous man a hare-brained fellow! Come, gentlemen!" On this, Counsellor Niklausse and the commissary accompanied the burgomaster into the parlour. Who, then, was this personage, known by the singular name of Doctor Ox?
Then a galop, an infernal galop, which lasted an hour without any one being able to stop it, whirled off, in its windings, across the halls, the drawing-rooms, the antechambers, by the staircases, from the cellar to the garret of the opulent mansion, the young men and young girls, the fathers and mothers, people of every age, of every weight, of both sexes; Collaert, the fat banker, and Madame Collaert, and the counsellors, and the magistrates, and the chief justice, and Niklausse, and Madame Van Tricasse, and the Burgomaster Van Tricasse, and the Commissary Passauf himself, who never could recall afterwards who had been his partner on that terrible evening.
"It is at least seventeen years since I have ascended the belfry tower," said Van Tricasse. "I do not think I ever came up before," replied Niklausse; "and I regret it, for the view from this height is sublime! Do you see, my friend, the pretty stream of the Vaar, as it winds among the trees?" "And, beyond, the heights of Saint Hermandad! How gracefully they shut in the horizon!
A quarter of an hour after quitting the gasworks, Van Tricasse said softly to Niklausse, "An amiable man, Doctor Ox! It is always a pleasure to see him!"
"You say?" asked the Burgomaster Van Tricasse of the Counsellor Niklausse. "I say that this war is necessary," replied Niklausse, firmly, "and that the time has come to avenge this insult." "Well, I repeat to you," replied the burgomaster, tartly, "that if the people of Quiquendone do not profit by this occasion to vindicate their rights, they will be unworthy of their name."
The two notabilities soon resumed their ascent, casting curious glances through the loopholes pierced in the tower walls. The burgomaster had taken the head of the procession, without any remark on the part of the counsellor. It even happened that at about the three hundred and fourth step, Van Tricasse being completely tired out, Niklausse kindly pushed him from behind.
"Ah, you take it thus!" replied Niklausse harshly. "Very well, monsieur, we will march without you, if it does not please you to go." "A burgomaster's place is in the front rank, monsieur!" "And that of a counsellor also, monsieur." "You insult me by thwarting all my wishes," cried the burgomaster, whose fists seemed likely to hit out before long.
"Nothing new since yesterday," replied Niklausse. "And the doctor, Dominique Custos?" "I have not heard anything, either of him or of the advocate, André Schut."
After this lapse of time, during which neither the counsellor nor the burgomaster moved so much as a finger, Niklausse asked Van Tricasse whether his predecessor of some twenty years before had not thought of suppressing this office of civil commissary, which each year cost the town of Quiquendone the sum of thirteen hundred and seventy-five francs and some centimes.
Counsellor Niklausse rose to take leave of Van Tricasse, whose appetite had been stimulated by so many affairs discussed and decisions taken; and it was agreed that the council of notables should be convened after a reasonably long delay, to determine whether a decision should be provisionally arrived at with reference to the really urgent matter of the Oudenarde gate.
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