. They sat upon
the broad steps of the house, so that every word they spoke reached her
ear, although she could scarcely distinguish them in the darkness. These
were no other than Max Grimeau and Blind Bartemy, the brace of beggars
whose post was at the gate of the Basse Ville. They seemed to be
comparing the amount of alms each had received during the day, and were
arranging for a supper at some obscure haunt they frequented in the
purlieus of the lower town, when another figure came up, short, dapper,
and carrying a knapsack, as Angelique could detect by the glimmer of a
lantern that hung on a rope stretched across the street. He was greeted
warmly by the old mendicants.

"Sure as my old musket it is Master Pothier, and nobody else!" exclaimed
Max Grimeau rising, and giving the newcomer a hearty embrace. "Don't
you see, Bartemy? He has been foraging among the fat wives of the
south shore. What a cheek he blows--red as a peony, and fat as a Dutch
Burgomaster!" Max had seen plenty of the world when he marched under
Marshal de Belleisle, so he was at no loss for apt comparisons.

"Yes!" replied Blind Bartemy, holding out his hand to be shaken. "I see
by your voice, Master Pothier, that you have not said grace over bare
bones during your absence. But where have you been this long time?"

"Oh, fleecing the King's subjects to the best of my poor ability in the
law! and without half the success of you and Max here, who toll the gate
of the Basse Ville more easily than the Intendant gets in the King's
taxes!"

"Why not?" replied Bartemy, with a pious twist of his neck, and an
upward cast of his blank orbs. "It is pour l'amour de Dieu! We beggars
save more souls than the Cure; for we are always exhorting men to
charity. I think we ought to be part of Holy Church as well as the Gray
Friars."

"And so we are part of Holy Church, Bartemy!" interrupted Max Grimeau.
"When the good Bishop washed twelve pair of our dirty feet on Maunday
Thursday in the Cathedral, I felt like an Apostle--I did! My feet were
just ready for benediction; for see! they had never been washed, that
I remember of, since I marched to the relief of Prague! But you should
have been out to Belmont to-day, Master Pothier! There was the grandest
Easter pie ever made in New France! You might have carried on a lawsuit
inside of it, and lived off the estate for a year--I ate a bushel of it.
I did!"

"Oh, the cursed luck is every day mine!" replied Master Pothi