re_
names for the guillotine. "He will be on the winning side if it costs
him the blood of every friend he has in the world."

'"Then what does he want here?" says one of 'em. "We have all lost our
game."

'"My faith!" says the Marquise. "He will find out, if any one can,
whether this canaille of a Washington means to help us to fight England.
Genet (that was my ambassador in the _Embuscade_) has failed and gone
off disgraced; Fauchet (he was the new man) hasn't done any better, but
our abbe will find out, and he will make his profit out of the news.
Such a man does not fail."

'"He begins unluckily," says the Vicomte. "He was set upon to-day in the
street for not hooting your Washington." They all laughed again, and one
remarks, "How does the poor devil keep himself."

'He must have slipped in through the wash-house door, for he flits past
me and joins 'em, cold as ice.

'"One does what one can," he says. "I sell buttons. And you, Marquise?"

'"I?"--she waves her poor white hands all burned--"I am a cook--a very
bad one--at your service, abbe. We were just talking about you."

'They didn't treat him like they talked of him. They backed off and
stood still.

"'I have missed something then," he says. "But I spent this last hour
playing--only for buttons, Marquise--against a noble savage, the
veritable Huron himself."

'"You had your usual luck, I hope?" she says.

'"Certainly," he says. "I cannot afford to lose even buttons in these
days."

'"Then I suppose the child of nature does not know that your dice are
usually loaded, Father Tout-a-tous," she continues. I don't know whether
she meant to accuse him of cheating. He only bows.

'"Not yet, Mademoiselle Cunegonde," he says, and goes on to make himself
agreeable to the rest of the company. And that was how I found out our
Monsieur Peringuey was Count Charles Maurice Talleyrand de Perigord.'

Pharaoh stopped, but the children said nothing.

'You've heard of him?' said Pharaoh.

Una shook her head.

'Was Red Jacket the Indian he played dice with?' Dan asked.

'He was. Red Jacket told me the next time we met. I asked if the lame
man had cheated. Red Jacket said no--he had played quite fair and was a
master player. I allow Red Jacket knew. I've seen him, on the
Reservation, play himself out of everything he had and in again. Then I
told Red Jacket all I'd heard at the party concerning Talleyrand.

'"I was right," he says. "I saw the man's war-face whe