“That is a question to discuss.”

“Then let us discuss it.  A customer, confiding in my honesty and discretion, gives me an order to make a pair of trousers; he pays me as he agreed, without beating me down, and on the day he promised.  We are loyal to each other.  I give him a pair of good trousers, honestly made, and he pays me with good money.  We are even.  Have I the right afterward, by imprudent words, or otherwise, to furnish clews against him?  The case is a delicate one.”

“Do you place the interest of the individual above that of society?”

“When it is a question of a professional secret, yes.  Where should we be if the lawyer, the notary, the doctor, the confessor, the tailor, could accept compromises on this point of doctrine?  It would be anarchy, simply, and in the end it would be the interest of society that would suffer.”

The agent, who had no time to lose, began to be impatient.

“I will tell you,” he said, “that the tailor, however important his profession may be, is not placed exactly as the doctor or confessor.  Have you not a book in which you write your customers’ orders?”

“Certainly.”

“So that if you persevere in a theory, pushing it to an extreme, I need only to go to the commissioner of your quarter, who, in virtue of the power of the law conferred upon him, will seize your books.”

“That would be by violence, and my responsibility would be at an end.”

“And in these books the judge would see to whom you have furnished trousers of this stuff.  It would only remain then to discover in whose interest you have wished to escape the investigations of the law.”

Saying this, he took from his pocket a small box, and taking out a piece of paper, he took from it a button to which adhered a piece of navy blue stuff.

Valerius, who was not in the least moved by the threat of the commissioner, for he was a man to brave martyrdom, looked at the box curiously.  When the agent displayed the button, a movement of great surprise escaped him.

“You see,” the agent exclaimed, “that you know this cloth!”

“Will you permit me to look at it?” Valerius asked.

“Willingly, but on condition that you do not touch it; it is precious.”

Valerius took the box, and approaching the front of the shop, looked at the button and the piece of cloth.

“It is a button marked ‘A.P.,’ as you see, and we know that you use these buttons.”

“I do not deny it; they are good buttons, and I give only good things to my customers.”

Returning the box to the agent, he took a large book and began to turn over the leaves; pieces of cloth were pasted on the pages, and at the side were several lines of large handwriting.  Arriving at a page where was a piece of blue cloth, he took the box and compared this piece with that of the button, examining it by daylight.

“Sir,” he said, “I am going to tell you some very serious things.”