u."

"Well, will you buy all my armor?"

"No, I only want the cuirass."

"Do you only buy cuirasses?"

"Yes."

"That is odd, for if you buy and sell by weight, one sort of iron is as
good as another."

"That is true, but I have preferences."

"Well, then, buy only the cuirass, or rather--now I think again--buy
nothing at all."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that in these times every one wants his arms."

"What! in perfect peace?"

"My good friend, if we were in perfect peace, you would not buy so many
cuirasses, and so secretly, too. But really, the longer I look at you,
the more I think I know your face. You are not Nicholas Trouchon, but
still I know you."

"Silence!"

"And if you buy cuirasses--"

"Well!"

"I am sure it is for a work agreeable to God."

"Hold your tongue!"

"You enchant me!" cried the bourgeois, stretching out a long arm over
the balcony and seizing the hand of the dealer.

"Then who the devil are you?" cried he, who felt his hand held as if in
a vise.

"I am Robert Briquet, the terror of schismatics, the friend of the
Union, and a fierce Catholic; and you are not Nicholas Gimbelot, the
currier."

"No, no! good-by."

"What! are you going?"

"Yes!" and he ran off.

But Robert Briquet was not a man to be foiled; he jumped from his
balcony and ran after him.

"You are mad!" said he. "If I were your enemy, I have but to cry out,
and the watch is in the next street; but you are my friend, and now I
know your name. You are Nicholas Poulain, lieutenant to the provost of
Paris. I knew it was Nicholas something."

"I am lost!" murmured the man.

"No; you are saved. I will do more for the good cause than ever you
would; you have found a brother. Take one cuirass, and I will take
another; I give you my gloves and the rest of my armor for nothing. Come
on, and Vive l'Union!"

"You accompany me?"

"I will help you to carry these cuirasses which are to conquer the
Philistines. Go on, I follow."

A spark of suspicion lingered in the soul of the lieutenant, but he
thought; "If he wished me ill, he would not have acknowledged he knew
me. Come on then!" he added aloud, "if you will."

"To life or death!" cried Briquet, and he continued to talk in this
strain till they arrived near the Hotel Guise, where Nicholas Poulain
stopped.

"I fancied it would be here," thought Briquet.

"Now," said Nicholas, with a tragic air, "there is still time to retire
before entering the lio