And Godeschal took up the sentence he was dictating--"/given in/--Are
you ready?"

"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.

"What! have you written /by Jingo/?" cried Godeschal, looking at one
of the novices, with an expression at once stern and humorous.

"Why, yes," said Desroches, the fourth clerk, leaning across his
neighbor's copy, "he has written, '/We must dot our i's/' and spelt it
/by Gingo/!"

All the clerks shouted with laughter.

"Why! Monsieur Hure, you take 'By Jingo' for a law term, and you say
you come from Mortagne!" exclaimed Simonnin.

"Scratch it cleanly out," said the head clerk. "If the judge, whose
business it is to tax the bill, were to see such things, he would say
you were laughing at the whole boiling. You would hear of it from the
chief! Come, no more of this nonsense, Monsieur Hure! A Norman ought