alled streets. It was very late,
and lights were few. We had started in clear starlight, but now a rack
of clouds hid even their pale shine.

"The snake-hole over again," said M. Etienne. "But we are almost at our
own gates."

But, as in the snake-hole, came light. Turning a sharp corner, we ran
straight into a gentleman and his porte-flambeau, swinging along at as
smart a pace as we.

"A thousand pardons," M. Etienne cried to his encounterer, the possessor
of years and gravity but of no great size, whom he had almost knocked
down. "I heard you, but knew not you were so close. We were speeding to
get home."

The personage was also of a portliness, and the collision had knocked
the wind out of him. He leaned panting against the wall. As he scanned
M. Etienne's open countenance and princely dress his alarm vanished.

"It is unseemly to go about on a night like this without a lantern," he
said with asperity. "The municipality should forbid it. I shall
certainly bring the matter up at the next sitting."

"Monsieur is a member of the Parliament?" M. Etienne asked with immense
respect.

"I have that honour, monsieur," the little man replied, delighted to
impress us, as he himself was impressed, by the sense of his importance.

"Oh," said M. Etienne, with increasing solemnity, "perhaps monsieur had
a hand in a certain decree of the 28th June?"

The little man began to look uneasy.

"There was, as monsieur says, a measure passed that day," he stammered.

"A rebellious and contumacious decree," M. Etienne rejoined, "most
offensive to the general-duke." Whereupon he fingered his sword.

"Monsieur," the little deputy cried, "we meant no offence to his Grace,
or to any true Frenchman. We but desire peace after all these years of
blood. We were informed that his Grace was angry; yet we believed that
even he will come to see the matter in a different light--"

"You have acted in a manner insulting to his Grace of Mayenne," M.
Etienne repeated inexorably, and he glanced up the street and down the
street to make sure the coast was clear. The wretched little deputy's
teeth chattered.

The linkman had retreated to the other side of the way, where he seemed
on the point of fleeing, leaving his master to his fate. I thought it
would be a shame if the badgered deputy had to stumble home in the dark,
so I growled out to the fellow:

"Stir one step at your peril!"

I was afraid he would drop the flambeau and run, but he di