"We must get him away, somehow," he said. "Where does he stay?"

"At the house of Louis Charron," was the reply. "Louis Charron--isn't
he the fellow that sells whisky without a license?"

"It is so, monsieur."

The Judge moved his head from side to side like a bear in a cage. "It is
that, is it, my Fille? By the thumb of the devil, isn't it time then
that Louis Charron was arrested for breaking the law? Also how do we
know but that the interloping fellow Fynes is an agent for a whisky firm
perhaps? Couldn't he, then, on suspicion, be arrested with--"

The Clerk of the Court shook his head mournfully. His Judge was surely
becoming childish in his old age. He looked again closely at the great
man, and saw a glimmer of moisture in the grey eyes. It was clear that
Judge Carcasson felt deeply the dangers of the crisis, and that the
futile outburst had merely been the agitated protest of the helpless.

"The man is what he says he is--an actor; and it would be folly to arrest
him. If our Zoe is really fond of him, it would only make a martyr of
him."

As he made this reply M. Fille looked furtively at the other--out of the
corner of his eye, as it were. The reply of the Judge was impatient,
almost peevish and rough. "Did you think I was in earnest, my
punchinello? Surely I don't look so young as all that. I am over sixty-
five, and am therefore mentally developed!"

M. Fille was exactly sixty-five years of age, and the blow was a shrewd