e devil can I find out your little
door?"

"Have you no sense? Follow the wall to the right, brush against it, and
you will easily find the little door. It is next to No. 50. If you do
not find it, you must be drunk," answered the Italian, with increased
bitterness.

The coachman only replied by swearing like a trooper, and whipping up
his jaded horses. Then, keeping close to the wall, he strained his eyes
in trying to read the numbers of the houses, by the aid of his carriage
lamps.

After some moments, the coach again stopped. "I have passed No. 50, and
here is a little door with a portico," said the coachman. "Is that the
one?"

"Yes," said the voice. "Now go forward some twenty yards, and then
stop."

"Well! I never--"

"Then get down from your box, and give twice three knocks at the little
door we have just passed--you understand me?--twice three knocks."

"Is that all you give me to drink?" cried the exasperated coachman.

"When you have taken me back to the Faubourg Saint-Germain, where I
live, you shall have something handsome, if you do but manage matters
well."

"Ha! now the Faubourg Saint-Germain! Only that little bit of distance!"
said the driver, with repressed rage. "And I who have winded my horses,
wanted to be on the boulevard by the time the play was out. Well,
I'm blowed!" Then, putting a good face on his bad luck, and consoling
himself with the thought of the promised drink-money, he resumed: "I am
to give twice three knocks at the little door?"

"Yes; three knocks first--then pause--then three other knocks. Do you
understand?"

"What next?"

"Tell the person who comes, that he is waited for, and bring him here to
the coach."

"The devil burn you!" said the coachman to himself, as he turned round
on the box, and whipped up his horses, adding: "this crusty old Dutchman
has something to do with Free-masons, or, perhaps, smugglers, seeing we
are so near the gates. He deserves my giving him in charge, for bringing
me all the way from the Rue de Vaugirard."

At twenty steps beyond the little door, the coach again stopped, and the
coachman descended from the box to execute the orders he had received.
Going to the little door, he knocked three times; then paused, as he had
been desired, and then knocked three times more. The clouds, which had
hitherto been so thick as entirely to conceal the disk of the moon, just
then withdrew sufficiently to afford a glimmering light, so that when
the