ung man most was a
match-lock pistol with its formidable trigger. This new and terrible
weapon lay close to Cornelius.

"How do you expect to earn your living with me?" said the latter.

"I have but little money," replied Philippe, "but I know good tricks in
business. If you will pay me a sou on every mark I earn for you, that
will satisfy me."

"A sou! a sou!" echoed the miser; "why, that's a good deal!"

At this moment the old sibyl returned with the key.

"Come," said Cornelius to Philippe.

The pair went out beneath the portico and mounted a spiral stone
staircase, the round well of which rose through a high turret, beside
the hall in which they had been sitting. At the first floor up the young
man paused.

"No, no," said Cornelius. "The devil! this nook is the place where the
king takes his ease."

The architect had constructed the room given to the apprentice under the
pointed roof of the tower in which the staircase wound. It was a little
room, all of stone, cold and without ornament of any kind. The tower
stood in the middle of the facade on the courtyard, which, like the
courtyards of all provincial houses, was narrow and dark. At the farther
end, through an iron railing, could be seen a wretched garden in which
nothing grew but the mulberries which Cornelius had introduced. The
young nobleman took note of all this through the loopholes on the spiral
staircase, the moon casting, fortunately, a brilliant light. A cot, a
stool, a mismatched pitcher and basin formed the entire furniture of
the room. The light could enter only through square openings, placed at
intervals in the outside wall of the tower, according, no doubt, to the
exterior ornamentation.

"Here is your lodging," said Cornelius; "it is plain and solid and
contains all that is needed for sleep. Good night! Do not leave this
room as _the others_ did."

After giving his apprentice a last look full of many meanings, Cornelius
double-locked the door, took away the key and descended the staircase,
leaving the young nobleman as much befooled as a bell-founder when on
opening his mould he finds nothing. Alone, without light, seated on a
stool, in a little garret from which so many of his predecessors had
gone to the scaffold, the young fellow felt like a wild beast caught in
a trap. He jumped upon the stool and raised himself to his full height
in order to reach one of the little openings through which a faint light
shone. Thence he saw the Lo