mp hung by a chain from the
grimy ceiling, and in a corner of the room a tiny iron stove shed more
unpleasant vapour than warm glow around.

There was but little furniture: two or three chairs, a table which was
littered with papers, and a corner-cupboard--the open doors of which
revealed a miscellaneous collection--bundles of papers, a tin saucepan,
a piece of cold sausage, and a couple of pistols. The fumes of stale
tobacco-smoke hovered in the air, and mingled most unpleasantly with
those of the lamp above, and of the mildew that penetrated through the
walls just below the roof.

Heron pointed to one of the chairs, and then sat down on the other,
close to the table, on which he rested his elbow. He picked up a
short-stemmed pipe, which he had evidently laid aside at the sound of
the bell, and having taken several deliberate long-drawn puffs from it,
he said abruptly:

"Well, what is it now?"

In the meanwhile de Batz had made himself as much at home in this
uncomfortable room as he possibly could. He had deposited his hat and
cloak on one rickety rush-bottomed chair, and drawn another close to
the fire. He sat down with one leg crossed over the other, his podgy
be-ringed hand wandering with loving gentleness down the length of his
shapely calf.

He was nothing if not complacent, and his complacency seemed highly to
irritate his friend Heron.

"Well, what is it?" reiterated the latter, drawing his visitor's
attention roughly to himself by banging his fist on the table. "Out with
it! What do you want? Why have you come at this hour of the night to
compromise me, I suppose--bring your own d--d neck and mine into the
same noose--what?"

"Easy, easy, my friend," responded de Batz imperturbably; "waste not
so much time in idle talk. Why do I usually come to see you? Surely you
have had no cause to complain hitherto of the unprofitableness of my
visits to you?"

"They will have to be still more profitable to me in the future,"
growled the other across the table. "I have more power now."

"I know you have," said de Batz suavely. "The new decree? What? You
may denounce whom you please, search whom you please, arrest whom you
please, and send whom you please to the Supreme Tribunal without giving
them the slightest chance of escape."

"Is it in order to tell me all this that you have come to see me at this
hour of the night?" queried Heron with a sneer.

"No; I came at this hour of the night because I surmised t