Read "Within an Inch of His Life" by Emile Gaboriau online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
By this single phrase M. Galpin made himself master of the situation, and reduced the doctor to an inferior position, in which, it is true, he had the mayor and the commonwealth attorney to bear him company. There was nothing now to be thought of, but the crime that had been committed, and the judge who was to punish the author. But he tried in vain to assume all the rigidity of his official air and that contempt for human feelings which has made justice so hateful to thousands. His whole being was impregnated with intense satisfaction, up to his beard, cut and trimmed like the box-hedges of an old-fashioned garden.
"Well, doctor," he asked, "first of all, have you any objection to my questioning your patient?"