bly,
less at ease.

"Let her hasten," cried the courier, "for I am famished."

"Have patience, Anatole," murmured the ever-gentle Cadoux. "The good
woman did not expect us."

Anatole! The name buzzed through Caron's brain. To whom did it belong?
He knew of someone who bore it. Yet question himself though he might,
he could at the moment find no answer. And then the courier created a
diversion by addressing him.

"Fill yourself a glass, mon bonhomme," said he. "I have a toast for
you."

"For me, Monsieur," cried La Boulaye, with surprised humility. "It were
too great an honour."

"Do as you are bidden, man," returned this very peremptory courier.
"There; now let us see how your favour runs. Cry 'Long Live the King!'"

Holding the brandy-glass, which the man had forced upon him, La Boulaye
eyed him whimsically for a second.

"There is no toast I would more gladly drink," said he at last, "if I
considered it availing. But--alas--you propose it over-late."

"Diable! What may you mean?"

"Why, that since the King is dead, it shall profit us little to cry,
'Long Live the King!'"

"The King, Monsieur, never dies," said Cadoux sententiously.

"Since you put it so, Monsieur," answered La Boulaye, as if convinced,
"I'll honour the toast." And with the cry they asked of him he drained
his glass.

"And so, my honest fellow," said Des Cadoux, producing his eternal
snuff-box, "it seems that you are a Royalist. We did but test you with
that toast, my friend."

"What should a poor fellow know of politics, Messieurs?" he deprecated.
"These are odd times. I doubt me the world has never seen their like. No
man may safely know his neighbour. Now you, sir," he pursued, turning
to the younger man, "you have the air of a sans-culotte, yet from your
speech you seem an honest enough gentleman."

The fellow laughed with unction.

"The air of a sans-culotte?" he cried. "My faith, yes. So much so, that
this morning I imposed myself as a courier from Paris upon no less
an astute sleuth-hound of the Convention than the Citizen-deputy La
Boulaye."

"Is it possible?" cried Caron, his eyes opening wide in wonder. "But
how, Monsieurs? For surely a courier must bear letters, and--"

"So did I, so did I, my friend," the other interrupted, with vain glory.
"I knocked a patriotic courier over the head to obtain them. He was
genuine, that other courier, and I passed myself out of France with his
papers."

"Monsieur is amusing himse