I know that some days later he, along with that deadly and
poisonous criminal Monsieur Auguste and that aged archtraitor Monsieur
Pet-airs, and that incomparably wicked person Surplice, and a ragged
gentle being who one day presented us with a broken spoon which he had
found somewhere--the gift being a purely spontaneous mark of approval and
affection--who for this reason was known as The Spoonman and the vast and
immeasurable honour of departing for Precigne _pour la duree de la
guerre_. If ever I can create by some occult process of imagining a deed
so perfectly cruel as the deed perpetrated in the case of Joseph
Demestre, I shall consider myself a genius. Then let us admit that the
Three Wise Men were geniuses. And let us, also and softly, admit that it
takes a good and great government perfectly to negate mercy. And let us,
bowing our minds smoothly and darkly, repeat with Monsieur le
Curee--"_toujours l'enfer...._"
The Wanderer was almost insane when he heard the judgment of _la
commission_. And hereupon I must pay my respects to Monsieur Pet-airs;
whom I had ever liked, but whose spirit I had not, up to the night
preceding The Wanderer's departure, fully appreciated. Monsieur Pet-airs
sat for hours at the card-table, his glasses continually fogging,
censuring The Wanderer in tones of apparent annoyance for his frightful
weeping (and now and then himself sniffing faintly with his big red
nose); sat for hours pretending to take dictation from Joseph Demestre,
in reality composing a great letter or series of great letters to the
civil and I guess military authorities of Orne on the subject of the
injustice done to the father of four children, one a baby at the breast,
now about to be separated from all he held dear and good in this world.
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