the cases which the Courts of Conciliation have
not been able to settle. The proportion of cases
left by the courts below to this court is one in
five. The first case before the Prudent Men
was between a contractor and one of those
nuisances to the real working man we know as
sweaters. The president became very irate over
this case. The sweater and the contractor stood
side by side, and pleaded alternately. Now
one interrupted the other, and now the sweater's
wife (such is the power of love) could not refrain
from helping her husband out of a little confused
perjury. Then the sonorous voice of the
president rose above the gabble of the contending
parties, the wife was dismissed into the body of
the court that she might not have the last word,
and justice proceeded to question first
complainant, then defendant. By searching
questions first from one Prudent Man, then from
another, it appeared that the sweater and the
contractor had been flying kites together; in
other words, manufacturing accommodation-
bills. It appeared, also, that the sweater was
endeavouring to intimidate the contractor, by
exposing his lack of ready money. It was
impossible to hold the keen sweater to a
point. At every turn he slipped from the
president's hands into new revelations intended to
damage the contractor. At last the president
rose and declared that the case had been
heard. The Prudent Men clustered about
the president, as bees about to swarm cluster
about their queen. They hummed (the seven
heads packed together) also like bees. The
deliberation over, the Prudent Men resumed
their seats, and the president declared that
"the council, having deliberated, in conformity
with the law," and having heard complainant
and defendant, dismissed the sweater's claim as
one that was not a question between master
and man, therefore not to be judged by
the Prudent Men. It was a bill-discounting
quarrel.

A dwarf, sallow and heavy-browed, stepped
into the complainant's place; while a cleanly,
white-capped woman assumed the position of
defendant. The dwarf stated his case. He was
a working tailor, and the woman (who employed
working tailors) owed him twenty francs. She
had paid him five, and he now claimed fifteen.
The woman, speaking without the least
embarrassment, and with a most winning air of
candour, declared that the dwarf was not reasonable.
She was very poor just now: she had paid him
five francs, and now offered him ten, if he would
give her a mouth to scrape the balance
together.

"What!" exclaimed the president, "the
poor woman offers you ten francs, which makes
fifteen out of twenty, and begs a month to get
the balance together for you, and you refuse!
Have you no sense of Christian charity, my man?
Is the world to be made a happy one by harshness
like this? Take what the poor woman offers
you."

The dwarf stood savagely insensible. He
would have his money. Whereupon the
Prudent Men clustered together, and whispered for
a moment. When they had resumed their seats,
the president, having declared (as he declared
in all cases before pronouncing judgment) that
the council had deliberated in conformity with
the law, directed the woman to give the ten-
franc piece she held in her hand to her
inexorable little creditor, and ordered the dwarf to
wait a month for the balance. The woman put
the little gold coin down with an air of triumph,
and tripped from the court; and the dwarf
grumbled as he slipped the instalment of his debt into
his waistcoat pocket.

The ferocity of the president, when he was dealing
with the sweater, had not made a favourable
impression. We had said complacently, "Here
is some touchwood of the old Empire, armed by
the new Empire with a little comfortable authority
to dignify an old age." But, in the dwarf's
case, the president's manner, when endeavouring
to conciliate the harsh little man, by appealing
to his better nature, reversed this harsh
judgment. It was already manifest that
Monsieur the President was admirably adapted to
his place.

The dwarf had hardly pocketed his money
before a very dapper Frenchman, with high
shoulders, covered by a light olive-green coat,
upon the collar of which lay some well-greased
curls, bowed himself into the complainant's place,
taking care that the whole court observed his
dainty cane and spotless gloves. He was
followed by a grave man, whose close-cut hair,
burnt face and throat, and new civilian dress,
"announced," as our neighbours have it, a
discharged soldier. He led a child, about twelve
years old, and was himself led by his wife, who
took the entire matter at once into her own
hands. Dapper complainant was a manufacturer
of artificial flowers, and the little girl was
his apprentice. Her mother had withdrawn
her from his service for five months, and he
claimed the full amount that would have been
due to him had the child remained with him all
this time. Hereupon the woman raised her
voice in defence. She informed the president
that the child before him was the fruit of a first
marriage; that in the beginning of this present
year of grace she married "under the flag"—in
other words, the military gentleman on her
right. When she was about to follow him to
Italy she was anxious about her little girl. She
did not like to leave her with strangers, so she
removed her from the house of the flower-
manufacturer to that of her mother.

"How!" exclaimed the president, sharply.
"You make an engagement with monsieur
(pointing to dapper complainant), and you break
it! An engagement is sacred, and should not
be broken. Then how can you call monsieur a
stranger? Had not your child been with him
many months?"

The woman was energetic, and tackled the
president courageously. She begged that he
would observe the difference between a child
working out her apprenticeship under her
mother's eye, and the same child abandoned to