is was not there. At first he was annoyed; then as he
continued in vain to bawl the fellow's name, he began to grow uneasy;
lastly, when Polichinelle, who was with them, discovered Cordemais'
crutch standing discarded behind the door, M. Binet became alarmed.
A dreadful suspicion entered his mind. He grew visibly pale under his
paint.

"But this evening he couldn't walk without the crutch!" he exclaimed.
"How then does he come to leave it there and take himself off?"

"Perhaps he has gone on to the inn," suggested some one.

"But he couldn't walk without his crutch," M. Binet insisted.

Nevertheless, since clearly he was not anywhere about the market-hall,
to the inn they all trooped, and deafened the landlady with their
inquiries.

"Oh, yes, M. Cordemais came in some time ago."

"Where is he now?"

"He went away again at once. He just came for his bag."

"For his bag!" Binet was on the point of an apoplexy. "How long ago was
that?"

She glanced at the timepiece on the overmantel. "It would be about half
an hour ago. It was a few minutes before the Rennes diligence passed
through."

"The Rennes diligence!" M. Binet was almost inarticulate. "Could he...
could he walk?" he asked, on a note of terrible anxiety.

"Walk? He ran like a hare when he left the inn. I thought, myself, that
his agility was suspicious, seeing how lame he had been since he fell
downstairs yesterday. Is anything wrong?"

M. Binet had collapsed into a chair. He took his head in his hands, and
groaned.

"The scoundrel was shamming all the time!" exclaimed Climene. "His fall
downstairs was a trick. He was playing for this. He has swindled us."

"Fifteen louis at least--perhaps sixteen!" said M. Binet. "Oh, the
heartless blackguard! To swindle me who have been as a father to him--and
to swindle me in such a moment."

From the ranks of the silent, awe-stricken company, each member of
which was wondering by how much of the loss his own meagre pay would be
mulcted, there came a splutter of laughter.

M. Binet glared with blood-injected eyes.

"Who laughs?" he roared. "What heartless wretch has the audacity to
laugh at my misfortune?"

Andre-Louis, still in the sable glories of Scaramouche, stood forward.
He was laughing still.

"It is you, is it? You may laugh on another note, my friend, if I choose
a way to recoup myself that I know of."

"Dullard!" Scaramouche scorned him. "Rabbit-brained elephant! What if
Cordemais has gone wit