"My boy, do you not know all the judicial romances with which clients
impose on their attorneys? If the attorneys condemned themselves to
state nothing but the truth, they would not earn enough to keep their
office open."



Next day, at four in the afternoon, a very stout dame, looking a good
deal like a cask dressed up in a gown and belt, mounted Judge
Popinot's stairs, perspiring and panting. She had, with great
difficulty, got out of a green landau, which suited her to a miracle;
you could not think of the woman without the landau, or the landau
without the woman.

"It is I, my dear sir," said she, appearing in the doorway of the
judge's room. "Madame Jeanrenaud, whom you summoned exactly as if I
were a thief, neither more nor less."

The common words were spoken in a common voice, broken by the wheezing
of asthma, and ending in a cough.

"When I go through a damp place, I can't tell you what I suffer, sir.
I shall never make old bones, saving your presence. However, here I
am."

The lawyer was quite amazed at the appearance of this supposed
Marechale d'Ancre. Madame Jeanrenaud's face was pitted with an
infinite number of little holes, was very red, with a pug nose and a
low forehead, and was as round as a ball; for everything about the
good woman was round. She had the bright eyes of a country woman, an