a man about thirty-four years of age, in whom
observers would recognize a retired officer, from the loss of an arm and
the rosette of the Legion of honor in his button-hole, was standing, at
eight o'clock, one morning in the month of May, under the porte-cochere
of the Lion d'Argent, rue de Faubourg Saint-Denis, waiting, apparently,
for the departure of a diligence. Undoubtedly Pierrotin, the master of
the line of coaches running through the valley of the Oise (despatching
one through Saint-Leu-Taverny and Isle-Adam to Beaumont), would scarcely
have recognized in this bronzed and maimed officer the little Oscar
Husson he had formerly taken to Presles. Madame Husson, at last a widow,
was as little recognizable as her son. Clapart, a victim of Fieschi's
machine, had served his wife better by death than by all his previous
life. The idle lounger was hanging about, as usual, on the boulevard du
Temple, gazing at the show, when the explosion came. The poor widow
was put upon the pension list, made expressly for the families of the
victim, at fifteen hundred francs a year.

The coach, to which were harnessed four iron-gray horses that would
have done honor to the Messageries-royales, was divided into three
compartments, coupe, interieur, and rotonde, with an imperiale above. It
resembled those diligences called "Gondoles," which now ply, in rivalry
with the railroad, between Paris and Versailles. Both solid and light,
well-painted and well-kept, lined with fine blue cloth, and furnished
with blinds of a Moorish pattern and cushions of red morocco, the
"Swallow of the Oise" could carry, comfortably, nineteen passengers.
Pierrotin, now about fifty-six years old, was little changed. Still
dressed in a blue blouse, beneath which he wore a black suit, he smoked
his pipe, and superintended the two porters in livery, who were stowing
away the luggage in the great imperiale.

"Are your places taken?" he said to Madame Clapart and Oscar, eyeing
them like a man who is trying to recall a likeness to his memory.

"Yes, two places for the interieur in the name of my servant,
Bellejambe," replied Oscar; "he must have taken them last evening."

"Ah! monsieur is the new collector of Beaumont," said Pierrotin. "You
take the place of Monsieur Margueron's nephew?"

"Yes," replied Oscar, pressing the arm of his mother, who was about to
speak.

The officer wished to remain unknown for a time.

Just then Oscar thrilled at hearing the well-r