tly. Rising now on his knees, his
horizon was suddenly extended to include the broad common beyond the
hedge. He beheld there an enormous and very battered travelling chaise,
a cart piled up with timbers partly visible under the sheet of oiled
canvas that covered them, and a sort of house on wheels equipped with
a tin chimney, from which the smoke was slowly curling. Three heavy
Flemish horses and a couple of donkeys--all of them hobbled--were
contentedly cropping the grass in the neighbourhood of these vehicles.
These, had he perceived them sooner, must have given him the clue to the
queer scene that had been played under his eyes. Beyond the hedge other
figures were moving. Three at that moment came crowding into the
gap--a saucy-faced girl with a tip-tilted nose, whom he supposed to be
Columbine, the soubrette; a lean, active youngster, who must be the
lackey Harlequin; and another rather loutish youth who might be a zany
or an apothecary.

All this he took in at a comprehensive glance that consumed no more
time than it had taken him to say good-morning. To that good-morning
Pantaloon replied in a bellow:

"What the devil are you doing up there?"

"Precisely the same thing that you are doing down there," was the
answer. "I am trespassing."

"Eh?" said Pantaloon, and looked at his companions, some of the
assurance beaten out of his big red face. Although the thing was one
that they did habitually, to hear it called by its proper name was
disconcerting.

"Whose land is this?" he asked, with diminishing assurance.

Andre-Louis answered, whilst drawing on his stockings. "I believe it to
be the property of the Marquis de La Tour d'Azyr."

"That's a high-sounding name. Is the gentleman severe?"

"The gentleman," said Andre-Louis, "is the devil; or rather, I should
prefer to say upon reflection, that the devil is a gentleman by
comparison."

"And yet," interposed the villainous-looking fellow who played
Scaramouche, "by your own confessing you don't hesitate, yourself, to
trespass upon his property."

"Ah, but then, you see, I am a lawyer. And lawyers are notoriously
unable to observe the law, just as actors are notoriously unable to act.
Moreover, sir, Nature imposes her limits upon us, and Nature conquers
respect for law as she conquers all else. Nature conquered me last night
when I had got as far as this. And so I slept here without regard for
the very high and puissant Marquis de La Tour d'Azyr. At the sam