“Hold your tongue!”

“You enchant me!” cried the bourgeois, stretching out a long arm over the balcony and seizing the hand of the dealer.

“Then who the devil are you?” cried he, who felt his hand held as if in a vise.

“I am Robert Briquet, the terror of schismatics, the friend of the Union, and a fierce Catholic; and you are not Nicholas Gimbelot, the currier.”

“No, no! good-by.”

“What! are you going?”

“Yes!” and he ran off.

But Robert Briquet was not a man to be foiled; he jumped from his balcony and ran after him.

“You are mad!” said he.  “If I were your enemy, I have but to cry out, and the watch is in the next street; but you are my friend, and now I know your name.  You are Nicholas Poulain, lieutenant to the provost of Paris.  I knew it was Nicholas something.”

“I am lost!” murmured the man.

“No; you are saved.  I will do more for the good cause than ever you would; you have found a brother.  Take one cuirass, and I will take another; I give you my gloves and the rest of my armor for nothing.  Come on, and Vive l’Union!”

“You accompany me?”

“I will help you to carry these cuirasses which are to conquer the Philistines.  Go on, I follow.”

A spark of suspicion lingered in the soul of the lieutenant, but he thought; “If he wished me ill, he would not have acknowledged he knew me.  Come on then!” he added aloud, “if you will.”

“To life or death!” cried Briquet, and he continued to talk in this strain till they arrived near the Hotel Guise, where Nicholas Poulain stopped.

“I fancied it would be here,” thought Briquet.

“Now,” said Nicholas, with a tragic air, “there is still time to retire before entering the lion’s den.”

“Bah!  I have entered many. Et non intermuit medulla mea!” exclaimed Briquet; “but pardon me, perhaps you do not understand Latin?”

“Do you?”—­“As you see.”

“What a catch?” thought Poulain, “learned, strong, bold, and rich!” Then he added aloud, “Well! let us enter,” and he conducted Briquet to the door of the hotel.  The court was full of guards and men wrapped in cloaks, and eight horses, saddled and bridled, waited in a corner; but there was not a light to be seen.  Poulain whispered his name to the porter, and added, “I bring a good companion.”—­“Pass on.”

“Take these to the magazine,” said Poulain, handing the cuirasses to a soldier.  “Now I will present you,” said he to Briquet.

“No, I am very timid.  When I have done some work, I will present myself.”

“As you please.  Then wait here for me.”—­“What are we waiting for?” asked a voice.

“For the master,” replied another.

At this moment, a tall man entered.  “Gentlemen,” said he, “I come in his name.”

“Ah! it is M. de Mayneville,” said Poulain.

“Ah, really!” said Briquet, making a hideous grimace, which quite altered him.