testimony. This testimony does not say that the man who drew the
curtains at a quarter past five was built in such a way that it is
materially impossible to confound him with Florentin Cormier, because he
was small or hunchbacked or bald, or dressed like a workman; while
Florentin is tall, straight, with long hair and beard, and dressed like a
gentleman. It says, simply, that the man who drew the curtains was tall,
with long hair, and curled blond beard, and dressed like a gentleman.
But this description is exactly Florentin Cormier's, as it is yours--"

"Mine!" Saniel exclaimed.

"Yours, as well as that of many others. And it is this, unfortunately
for us, which destroys the irrefutability that we must have. How is it
certain that this tall man, with long hair and curled beard, is not
Florentin Cormier, since these are his chief characteristics? And it was
at night, at a distance of twelve or fifteen metres, through a window,
whose panes were obscured by the dust of papers and the mist, that this
sick woman, whose eyes are affected, whose mind is weakened by suffering,
was able, in a very short space of time, when she had no interest to
imprint upon her memory what she saw, to grasp certain signs, that she
recalled yesterday strongly enough to declare that the man who drew the
curtains was not Florentin Cormier, against whom so many charges have
accumulated from various sides, and who has only this testimony in his
favor--every sensible person could not but find it suspicious!"

"But it is true," Saniel said, happy to lend himself to this view of the
matter, which was his own.

"What makes the truth of a thing, my dear sir, is the way of presenting
it; let us change this manner and we falsify it. To arrive at the