“One Amerry-can pull’ it down, an’ Camille Brahmin ’e pas’e it back,” said a boy at Frowenfeld’s side.

Exchange Alley was once Passage de la Bourse, and led down (as it now does to the State House—­late St. Louis Hotel) to an establishment which seems to have served for a long term of years as a sort of merchants’ and auctioneers’ coffee-house, with a minimum of china and a maximum of glass:  Maspero’s—­certainly Maspero’s as far back as 1810, and, we believe, Maspero’s the day the apothecary entered it, March 9, 1804.  It was a livelier spot than the Veau-qui-tete; it was to that what commerce is to litigation, what standing and quaffing is to sitting and sipping.  Whenever the public mind approached that sad state of public sentiment in which sanctity signs politicians’ memorials and chivalry breaks into the gun-shops, a good place to feel the thump of the machinery was in Maspero’s.

The first man Frowenfeld saw as he entered was M. Valentine Grandissime.  There was a double semicircle of gazers and listeners in front of him; he was talking, with much show of unconcern, in Creole French.

“Policy?  I care little about policy.”  He waved his hand.  “I know my rights—­and Louisiana’s.  We have a right to our opinions.  We have”—­with a quiet smile and an upward turn of his extended palm—­“a right to protect them from the attack of interlopers, even if we have to use gunpowder.  I do not propose to abridge the liberties of even this army of fortune-hunters. Let them think.”  He half laughed.  “Who cares whether they share our opinions or not?  Let them have their own.  I had rather they would.  But let them hold their tongues.  Let them remember they are Yankees.  Let them remember they are unbidden guests.”  All this without the least warmth.

But the answer came aglow with passion, from one of the semicircle, whom two or three seemed disposed to hold in check.  It also was in French, but the apothecary was astonished to hear his own name uttered.

“But this fellow Frowenfeld”—­the speaker did not see Joseph—­“has never held his tongue.  He has given us good reason half a dozen times, with his too free speech and his high moral whine, to hang him with the lamppost rope!  And now, when we have borne and borne and borne and borne with him, and he shows up, all at once, in all his rottenness, you say let him alone!  One would think you were defending Honore Grandissime!” The back of one of the speaker’s hands fluttered in the palm of the other.

Valentine smiled.

“Honore Grandissime?  Boy, you do not know what you are talking about.  Not Honore, ha, ha!  A man who, upon his own avowal, is guilty of affiliating with the Yankees.  A man whom we have good reason to suspect of meditating his family’s dishonor and embarrassment!” Somebody saw the apothecary and laid a cautionary touch on Valentine’s arm, but he brushed it off.  “As for Professor Frowenfeld, he must defend himself.”