ratched with a knife-edge. He has yellow hair; mine is
brown. His eyes--"

"It is plain to me, monsieur," the officer interrupted, "that the
description fits you in every particular." And so it did.

I, who had heard M. Etienne described twenty times, had yesterday
mistaken Lucas for him; the same items served for both. It was the more
remarkable because they actually looked no more alike than chalk and
cheese. Lucas had set down his catalogue without a thought that he was
drawing his own picture. If ever hunter was caught in his own gin, Lucas
was!

"You lie!" he cried furiously. "You know I am not Mar. You lie, the
whole pack of you!"

"Gag him, Ravelle," the captain commanded with an angry flush.

"I demand to be taken before M. de Belin!" Lucas shouted.

The next moment the soldier had twisted a handkerchief about his mouth.

"Ready?" the captain asked of Gaspard, who had come back just in time to
aid in the throttling. "Move on, then."

He led the way out, the two dragoons following with their prisoner. And
this time Lucas's fertile wits failed him. He did not slip from his
captors' fingers between the room and the street. He was deposited in
the big black coach that had aroused my wonder. Louis cracked his whip
and off they rumbled.

I laughed all the way back to the Hotel St. Quentin.

XIX

_To the Hotel de Lorraine._

I found M. Etienne sitting on the steps before the house. He had doffed
his rusty black for a suit of azure and silver; his sword and poniard
were heavy with silver chasings. His blue hat, its white plume pinned in
a silver buckle, lay on the stone beside him. He had discarded his sling
and was engaged in tuning a lute.

Evidently he was struck by some change in my appearance; for he asked at
once:

"What has happened, Felix?"

"Such a lark!" I cried.

"What! did old Menard share the crowns with you for your trouble?"

"No; he pocketed them all. That was not it."

I was so choked with laughter as to make it hard work to explain what
was it, while his first bewilderment changed to an amazed interest,
which in its turn gave way, not to delight, but to distress.

"Mordieu!" he cried, starting up, his face ablaze, "if I resemble that
dirt--"

"As chalk and cheese," I said. "No one seeing you both could possibly
mistake you for two of the same race. But there was nothing in his
catalogue that did not fit him. It mentioned, to be sure, the right arm
in a sling; his was