not to write out an appeal without thought. It is the 'Shoulder arms!'
of the law."

"/Given in--in/?" asked Godeschal.--"Tell me when, Boucard."

"June 1814," replied the head clerk, without looking up from his work.

A knock at the office door interrupted the circumlocutions of the
prolix document. Five clerks with rows of hungry teeth, bright,
mocking eyes, and curly heads, lifted their noses towards the door,
after crying all together in a singing tone, "Come in!"

Boucard kept his face buried in a pile of papers--/broutilles/ (odds
and ends) in French law jargon--and went on drawing out the bill of
costs on which he was busy.

The office was a large room furnished with the traditional stool which
is to be seen in all these dens of law-quibbling. The stove-pipe
crossed the room diagonally to the chimney of a bricked-up fireplace;
on the marble chimney-piece were several chunks of bread, triangles of
Brie cheese, pork cutlets, glasses, bottles, and the head clerk's cup
of chocolate. The smell of these dainties blended so completely with
that of the immoderately overheated stove and the odor peculiar to
offices and old papers, that the trail of a fox would not have been
perceptible. The floor was covered with mud and snow, brought in by
the clerks. Near the window stood the desk with a revolving lid, where
the head clerk worked, and against the back of it was the second
clerk's table. The second clerk was at this moment in Court. It was
between eight and nine in the morning.