“You hear?” inquired the little official, nudging him.  “It is too late.  They are condemned to death, all of them.  They have their affair!”

Rufin shrugged and led the way back to the office.  But it was empty; the girl had gone.

“Tiens!” said the official.  “No doubt she heard of the sentence and knew that there was no more to be done.”

“Or else,” said Rufin thoughtfully, frowning at the floor—­“or else she reposes her trust in me.”

“Ah, doubtless,” agreed the little man.  “But say, then!  It has been an experience, hein?  Piquant, picturesque, moving, too.  For I am not like you; I do not see these dramas every day.”

“And you fancy I do?” cried Rufin.  “Man, I am terrified to find what goes on in the world.  And I thought I knew life!” With a gesture of hopelessness and impotence he turned on his heel and went forth.

The business preserved its character of a series of accidents to the end; accidents are the forced effects of truth.  Rufin, having organized supports of a kind not to be ignored in a republican state, even by blind Justice herself, threw his case at the wise grey head of the Minister of Justice—­a wily politician who knew the uses of advertisement.  The apaches are distinctively a Parisian produce, and if only Paris could be won over, intrigued by the romance and strangeness of the genius that had flowered in the gutter, and given to the world a star of art, all would be arranged and the guillotine would have but three necks to subdue.  France at large would only shrug, for France is the husband of Paris and permits her her caprices.  It rested with Paris, then.

But, as though they insisted upon a martyr, the apaches themselves intervened with a brisk series of murders and outrages, the last of which they effected on the very fringe of the show-Paris.  It was not a sergent de ville this time, but a shopkeeper, and the city frothed at the mouth and shrieked for revenge.

“After that,” said the Minister, “there is nothing to do.  See for yourself—­here are the papers!  We shall be fortunate if four executions suffice.”

Rufin was seated facing him across a great desk littered with documents.

“Why not try if three will serve?” he suggested.

The minister smiled and shook his head.  He looked at Rufin half humorously.

“These Parisians,” he said, “have the guillotine habit.  If they take to crying for more, what old man can be sure of dying in his bed?  My grandfather was an old man, and his head fell in the Revolution.”

“But this,” said Rufin, rustling the newspapers before him—­“this is clamor.  It is panic.  It is not serious.”

“That is why I am afraid of it,” replied the Minister.  “I am always afraid of a frightened Frenchman.  But, sans blague, my friend, I cannot do what you wish.”

Rufin put the piled newspapers from him and leaned forward to plead.