“His Excellency knows not what he asks,” said the patron, fumbling the coin between a finger and thumb; “our Genevese citizens love to keep house till the sun is up, lest they should break their necks by walking about the uneven streets in the dark, and it will be two long hours before a single bureau will open its windows in the town.  Besides, your man of the police is not like us of the lake, happy to get a morsel when the weather and occasion permit; but he is a regular feeder, that must have his grapes and his wine before he will use his wits for the benefit of his employers.  The Winkelried would weary of doing nothing, with this fresh western breeze humming between her masts, while the poor gentleman was swearing before the town-house gate at the laziness of the officers.  I know the rogues better than your Excellency, and would advise some other expedient.”

Baptiste looked, with a certain expression, at the guardian of the water-gate, and in a manner to make his meaning sufficiently clear to the travellers.  The latter studied the countenance of the Genevese a moment, and, better practised than the patron, or a more enlightened judge of character, he fortunately refused to commit himself by offering to purchase the officer’s good-will.  If there are too many who love to be tempted to forget their trusts, by a well-managed venality, there are a few who find a greater satisfaction in being thought beyond its influence.  The watchman of the gate happened to be one of the latter class, and, by one of the many unaccountable workings of human feeling, the very vanity which had induced him to suffer Il Maledetto to go through unquestioned, rather than expose his own ignorance, now led him to wish he might make some return for the stranger’s good opinion of his honesty.

“Will you let me look again at the pass, Signore?” asked the Genevese, as if he thought a sufficient legal warranty for that which he now strongly desired to do might yet be found in the instrument itself.

The inquiry was useless, unless it was to show that the elder Genoese was called the Signer Grimaldi and that his companion went by the name of Marcelli.  Shaking his head he returned the paper in the manner of a disappointed man.

“Thou canst not have read half of what the paper contains,” said Baptiste peevishly; “your reading and writing are not such easy matters, that a squint of the eye is all-sufficient.  Look at it again, and thou mayest yet find all in rule.  It is unreasonable to suppose Signori of their rank would journey like vagabonds, with papers to be suspected.”

“Nothing is wanting but our city signatures, without which my duty will let none go by, that are truly travellers.”

“This comes, Signore, of the accursed art of writing, which is much pushed and greatly abused of late.  I have heard the aged watermen of the Leman praise the good old time, when boxes and bales went and came, and no ink touched paper between him that sent and him that carried; and yet it has now reached the pass that a christian may not transport himself on his own legs without calling on the scriveners for permission!”