How would you have me over-rule it ?" "Monsieur," said the priest, in a tone of deep grief, "it is a question of an old man who is hungry and cold, and in danger of death if he be not succoured." With a despairing gesture, the director of "Le Globe" seemed to take the very walls as witnesses of his powerlessness.

No doubt he feared some nasty affair for his newspaper, in which he had abused the Invalids of Labour enterprise as an electoral weapon.

Perhaps, too, the secret terror into which the sitting of the Chamber had just thrown him was hardening his heart.

"I can do nothing," he repeated.

"But naturally I don't ask better than to have my hands forced by the ladies of the Committee.