The
fools are in love with him as if he were a woman."
"That is very curious. There must be something
remarkable about him."
"There's a remarkable amount of devilry--I
beg pardon, Your Eminence, but really this man is
enough to try the patience of a saint. It's hardly
credible, but I have to conduct all the interrogations
myself, for the regular officer cannot stand
it any longer."
"How is that?"
"It's difficult to explain. Your Eminence, but
you would understand if you had once heard the
way he goes on. One might think the interrogating
officer were the criminal and he the judge."
"But what is there so terrible that he can do?
He can refuse to answer your questions, of course;
but he has no weapon except silence."
"And a tongue like a razor. We are all mortal,
Your Eminence, and most of us have made mistakes
in our time that we don't want published
on the house-tops. That's only human nature,
and it's hard on a man to have his little slips of
twenty years ago raked up and thrown in his teeth----"
"Has Rivarez brought up some personal secret
of the interrogating officer?"
"Well, really--the poor fellow got into debt
when he was a cavalry officer, and borrowed a little
sum from the regimental funds----"
"Stole public money that had been intrusted to
him, in fact?"
"Of course it was very wrong, Your Eminence;
but his friends paid it back at once, and the affair
was hushed up,--he comes of a good family,--and
ever since then he has been irreproachable.
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