Next evening at nine Bianchon mounted his uncle's dusty
staircase, and found him at work on the statement of some
complicated judgment. The coat Lavienne had ordered of
the tailor had not been sent, so Popinot put on his old stained
coat, and was the Popinot unadorned whose appearance made
those laugh who did not know the secrets of his private life.
Bianchon, however, obtained permission to pull his cravat
straight, and to button his coat, and he hid the stains by
crossing the breast of it with the right side over the left, and
so displaying the new front of the cloth. But in a minute
the judge rucked the coat up over his chest by the way in
which he stuffed his hands into his pockets, obeying an ir-
resistible habit. Thus the coat, deeply wrinkled both in front
and behind, made a sort of hump in the middle of the back,
leaving a gap between the waistcoat and trousers through
which his shirt showed. Bianchon, to his sorrow, only dis-
covered this crowning absurdity at the moment when his
uncle entered the Marquise's room.
A brief sketch of the person and the career of the lady
in whose presence the doctor and the judge now found them-
selves is necessary for an understanding of her interview
with Popinot.
