第58章

Gringuet's deputy arrived two hours before you. You must get up a little earlier another time. They are poor tricksters who are too late for the fair. And now be silent, and it may save you a stripe or two to-morrow."There are situations in which even the greatest find it hard to maintain their dignity, and this was one. I looked at Maignan and La Trape, and they at me, and by the light of the lanthorn which the latter held I saw that they were smiling, doubtless at the dilemma in which we had innocently placed ourselves. But Ifound nothing to laugh at in the position; since the people outside might at any moment leave us where we were to fast until morning; and, after a moment's reflection, I called out to know who the speaker on the other side was.

"I am M. de Fonvelle," he answered.

"Well, M. de Fonvelle," I replied, "I advise you to have a care what you do. I am M. Gringuet's deputy. The other man is an impostor."He laughed.

"He has no papers," I cried.

"Oh, yes, he has!" he answered, mocking me. "M. Curtin has seen them, my fine fellow, and he is not one to pay money without warrant."At this several laughed, and a quavering voice chimed in with "Oh, yes, he has papers! I have seen them. Still, in a case--""There!" M. Fonvelle cried, drowning the other's words. "Now are you satisfied--you in there?"But M. Curtin had not done. "He has papers," he piped again in his thin voice.

"Still, M. de Fonvelle, it is well to be cautious, and--""Tut, tut! it is all right."

"He has papers, but he has no authority!" I shouted.

"He has seals," Fonvelle answered. "It is all right.""It is all wrong!" I retorted. "Wrong, I say! Go to your man, and you will find him gone--gone with your money, M. Curtin."Two or three laughed, but I heard the sound of feet hurrying away, and I guessed that Curtin had retired to satisfy himself.

Nevertheless, the moment which followed was an anxious one, since, if my random shot missed, I knew that I should find myself in a worse position than before. But judging--from the fact that the deputy had not confronted us himself--that he was an impostor, to whom Gringuet's illness had suggested the scheme on which I had myself hit, I hoped for the best; and, to be sure, in a moment an outcry arose in the house and quickly spread. Of those at the door, some cried to their fellows to hearken, while others hastened off to see. Yet still a little time elapsed, during which I burned with impatience; and then the crowd came trampling back, all wrangling and speaking at once.

At the door the chattering ceased, and, a hand being laid on the bar, in a moment the door was thrown open, and I walked out with what dignity I might. Outside, the scene which met my eyes might have been, under other circumstances, diverting. Before me stood the landlord of the inn, bowing with a light in each hand, as if the more he bent his backbone the more he must propitiate me;while a fat, middle-aged man at his elbow, whom I took to be Fonvelle, smiled feebly at me with a chapfallen expression. Alittle aside, Curtin, a shrivelled old fellow, was wringing his hands over his loss; and behind and round these, peeping over their shoulders and staring under their arms, clustered a curious crowd of busybodies, who, between amusement at the joke and awe of the great men, had much ado to control their merriment.

The host began to mutter apologies, but I cut him short. "I will talk to you to-morrow!" I said, in a voice which made him shake in his shoes. "Now give me supper, lights, and a room--and hurry. For you, M. Fonvelle, you are an ass! And for the gentleman there, who has filled the rogue's purse, he will do well another time to pay the King his dues!"With that I left the two--Fonvelle purple with indignation, and Curtin with eyes and mouth agape and tears stayed--and followed my host to his best room, Maignan and La Trape attending me with very grim faces. Here the landlord would have repeated his apologies, but my thoughts beginning to revert to the purpose which had brought me hither, I affected to be offended, that, by keeping all at a distance, I might the more easily preserve my character.

I succeeded so well that, though half the town, through which the news of my adventure had spread, as fire spreads in tinder, were assembled outside the inn until a late hour, no one was admitted to see me; and when I made my appearance next morning in the market-place and took my seat, with my two attendants, at a table by the corn-measures, this reserve had so far impressed the people that the smiles which greeted me scarcely exceeded those which commonly welcome a tax-collector. Some had paid, and, foreseeing the necessity of paying again, found little that was diverting in the jest. Others thought it no laughing matter to pay once; and a few had come as ill out of the adventure as Ihad. Under these circumstances, we quickly settled to work, no one entertaining the slightest suspicion; and La Trape, who could accommodate himself to anything, playing the part of clerk, I was presently receiving money and hearing excuses; the minute acquaintance with the routine of the finances, which I had made it my business to acquire, rendering the work easy to me.

We had not been long engaged, however, when Fonvelle put in an appearance, and elbowing the peasants aside, begged to speak with me apart. I rose and stepped back with him two or three paces;on which he winked at me in a very knowing fashion, "I am M. de Fonvelle," he said. And he winked again.

"Ah!" I said.

"My name is not in your list."

"I find it there," I replied, raising a hand to my ear.

"Tut, tut! you do not understand," he muttered. "Has not Gringuet told you?""What?" I said, pretending to be a little deaf.

"Has not--"

I shook my head.

"Has not Gringuet told you?" he repeated, reddening with anger;and this time speaking, on compulsion, so loudly that the peasants could hear him.