Give us a pinch, friend. Am I
awake, or dreaming? drunk or sober this morning?"
"Sober, I hope," said a quiet voice at his elbow. "I have just
looked in to see how you are after yesterday."
"How I am, Citizen Lomaque? Petrified with astonishment. You
yourself took charge of that man and woman for me, in the
waiting-room, yesterday morning; and as for myself, I could swear
to having read their names at the grate yesterday afternoon. Yet
this morning here are no such things as these said names to be
found in the list! What do you think of that?"
"And what do you think," interrupted the aggrieved subordinate,
"of his having the impudence to bully me for being careless in
chalking the doors, when he was too drunk to do it himself? too
drunk to know his right hand from his left! If I wasn't the
best-natured man in the world, I should report him to the head
jailer."
"Quite right of you to excuse him, and quite wrong of him to
bully you," said Lomaque, persuasively. "Take my advice," he
continued, confidentially, to the hunchback, "and don't trust too
implicitly to that slippery memory of yours, after our little
drinking bout yesterday. You could not really have read their
names at the grate, you know, or of course they would be down on
the list. As for the waiting-room at the tribunal, a word in your
ear: chief agents of police know strange secrets.
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