g from his rescuer to his antagonists.

"I had a little account to settle with you before, Dalbert," said
De Catinat, unsheathing his rapier.

"I am on the king's errand," snarled the other.

"No doubt. On guard, sir!"

"I am here on duty, I tell you!"

"Very good. Your sword, sir!"

"I have no quarrel with you."

"No?" De Catinat stepped forward and struck him across the face with his
open hand. "It seems to me that you have one now," said he.

"Hell and furies!" screamed the captain. "To your arms, men! _Hola_,
there, from above! Cut down this fellow, and seize your prisoner!
_Hola_! In the king's name!"

At his call a dozen more troopers came hurrying down the stairs, while
the three upon the landing advanced upon their former antagonist.
He slipped by them, however, and caught out of the old merchant's hand
the thick oak stick which he carried.

"I am with you, sir," said he, taking his place beside the guardsman.

"Call off your canaille, and fight me like a gentleman," cried
De Catinat.

"A gentleman! Hark to the bourgeois Huguenot, whose family peddles
cloth!"

"You coward! I will write liar on you with my sword-point!"

He sprang forward, and sent in a thrust which might have found its way
to Dalbert's heart had the heavy sabre of a dragoon not descended from
the side and shorn his more delicate weapon short off close to the hilt.
With a shout of triumph, his enemy sprang furiously upon him with his
rapier shortened, but was met by a sharp blow from the cudgel of the
young stranger which sent his weapon tinkling on to the ground. A
trooper, however, on the stair had pulled out a pistol, and clapping it
within a foot of the guardsman's head, was about to settle the combat,
once and forever, when a little old gentleman, who had quietly ascended
from the street, and who had been looking on with an amused and
interested smile at this fiery sequence of events, took a sudden step
forward, and ordered all parties to drop their weapons with a voice so
decided, so stern, and so full of authority, that the sabre points all
clinked down together upon the parquet flooring as though it were a part
of their daily drill.

"Upon my word, gentlemen, upon my word!" said he, looking sternly from
one to the other. He was a very small, dapper man, as thin as a
herring, with projecting teeth and a huge drooping many-curled wig,
which cut off the line of his skinny neck and the slope of his narrow
shoulder