“Before you went up to your rooms did you speak with any of the other lodgers?”

“No.”

There was a pause, and Florentin felt the judge’s eyes fixed on him with an aggravating persistency.  It seemed as if this look, which enveloped him from head to foot, wished to penetrate his inmost thoughts.

“Another thing,” said the judge.  “You did not lose a trousers’ button while you were with Caffie?”

Florentin expected this question, and for some time he had considered what answer he should make to it.  To deny was impossible.  It would be easy to convict him of a fib, for the fact of the question being asked was sufficient to say there was proof that the button was his.  He must, then, confess the truth, grave as it might be.

“Yes,” he said, “and this is how—­”

He related in detail the story of the bundle of papers placed on the highest shelf of the cases, his slipping on the ladder, and the loss of the button, which he did not discover until he was in the street.

The judge opened a drawer and took from it a small box, from which he took a button that he handed to Florentin.

“Is that it?” he asked.

Florentin looked at it.

“It is difficult for me to answer,” he said, finally; “one button resembles another.”

“Not always.”

“In that case, it would be necessary for me to have observed the form of the one I lost, and I gave no attention to it.  It seems to me that no one knows exactly how, or of what, the buttons are made that they wear.”

The judge examined him anew.

“But are not the trousers that you wear to-day the same from which this button was torn?”

“It is the pair I wore the day I called on Monsieur Caffie.”

“Then it is quite easy to compare the button that I show you with those on your trousers, and your answer becomes easy.”

It was impossible to escape this verification.

“Unbutton your vest,” said the judge, “and make your comparison with care—­with all the care that you think wise.  The question has some importance.”

Florentin felt it only too much, the importance of this question, but as it was set before him, he could not but answer frankly.

He unbuttoned his waistcoat, and compared the button with his.

“I believe that it is really the button that I lost,” he said.

Although he endeavored not to betray his anguish, he felt that his voice trembled, and that it had a hoarse sound.  Then he wished to explain this emotion.

“This is a truly terrible position for me,” he said.

The judge did not reply.

“But because I lost a button at Monsieur Caffie’s, it does not follow that it was torn off in a struggle.”

“You have your theory, and you will make the most of it, but this is not the place.  I have only one more question to ask:  By what button have you replaced the one you lost?”