Today's Stichomancy for Natalie Portman

over the story he had heard, and wondered whether he had heard both the first and the last of it. "No," he thought, "certainly not the last, probably only the beginning. A case like this is like a nest of Chinese boxes; you open one after the other and find a quainter workmanship in every box. Most likely poor Herbert is merely one of the outside boxes; there are stranger ones to follow."

Villiers could not take his mind away from Herbert and his story, which seemed to grow wilder as the night wore on. The fire seemed to burn low, and the chilly air of the morning crept into the room; Villiers got up with a glance over his

The Great God Pan

court allowed it.

"The interests of society are as great as those of the accused," said the president. "The court would be lacking in equity if it denied a like request when made by the defence; it ought therefore to grant that of the prosecution."

"All is luck or ill-luck!" said Bordin to his clients when the session was over. "Almost acquitted tonight you may be condemned to-morrow."

"In either case," said the elder de Simeuse, "we can only admire your skill."

Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne's eyes were full of tears. After the doubts and fears of the counsel for the defence, she had not expected this

endurable; but to have it grating upon my ears is a punishment which I do not in the least deserve."

"He first met Claudine on this wise," continued Nathan. "It was one of the unfilled days, when Youth is a burden to itself; days when youth, reduced by the overweening presumption of Age to a condition of potential energy and dejection, emerges therefrom (like Blondet under the Restoration), either to get into mischief or to set about some colossal piece of buffoonery, half excused by the very audacity of its conception. La Palferine was sauntering, cane in hand, up and down the pavement between the Rue de Grammont and the Rue de Richelieu, when in the distance he descried a woman too elegantly dressed, covered, as he

His prefect evidently wants to ruin him, and we have come to see you in order to prevent the Council of State from ratifying a great injustice."

"Who brings up the case?"

"Massol."

"Good."

"And our friends Giraud and Claude Vignon are on the committee," said Bixiou.

"Say just a word to them," urged Leon; "tell them to come to-night to Carabine's, where du Tillet gives a fete apropos of railways,--they are plundering more than ever on the roads."