d to the eyes. His hat, jauntily tipped to
one side, was, nevertheless, not ridiculous. Never was a mystery more
mysteriously bundled up and swathed.

"Look out!" cried the tiger, who preceded the tilbury on horseback.
"Open, papa Poupart, open!" he screamed in his shrill little voice.

The three servants of the inn ran out, and the tilbury drove in without
any one being able to see a single feature of the stranger's face. The
sub-prefect followed the tilbury into the courtyard, and went to the
door of the inn.

"Madame Poupart," said Antonin, "will you ask Monsieur--Monsieur--"

"I don't know his name," said Gothard's sister.

"You do wrong! The rules of the police are strict, and Monsieur Groslier
doesn't trifle, like some commissaries of police."

"Innkeepers are never to blame about election-time," remarked the little
tiger, getting off his horse.

"I'll repeat that to Vinet," thought the sub-prefect. "Go and ask your
master if he can receive the sub-prefect of Arcis."

Presently Paradise returned.

"Monsieur begs Monsieur the sub-prefect to come up; he will be delighted
to see him."

"My lad," said Olivier Vinet, who with the two other functionaries had
joined the sub-prefect before the inn, "how much does your master give a
year for a boy of your cut and wits?"

"Give, monsieur! What do you take me for? Monsieur le comte lets himself
be milked, and I'm content."

"That boy was raised in a good school!" said Frederic Marest.

"The highest school, monsieur," said the urchin, amazing the four
friends with his perfect self-possession.

"What a Figaro!" cried Vinet.

"Mustn't lower one's price," said the infant. "My master calls me a
little Robert-Macaire, and since we have learned how to invest our money
we are Figaro, plus a savings bank."

"How much do you earn?"

"Oh! some races I make two or three thousand francs--and without selling
my master, monsieur."

"Sublime infant!" said Vinet; "he knows the turf."

"Yes, and all gentlemen riders," said the child, sticking out his tongue
at Vinet.

Antonin Goulard, ushered by the landlord into a room which had been
turned into a salon, felt himself instantly under the focus of an
eyeglass held in the most impertinent manner by the stranger.

"Monsieur," said the sub-prefect with a certain official hauteur, "I
have just learned from the wife of the innkeeper that you refuse to
conform to the ordinances of the police, and as I do not doubt that you