eauchamp, and decided to seek news of him at La Boule
d'Or. Without knowing it, I had strayed into the very street where the
curious shopkeeper lived, and there he stood at his door.

"Monsieur has soon returned," said he.

"To beg a fresh favour. Will you direct me to the Rue de Roi?"

"The Rue de Roi?" he exclaimed in a tone of surprise.

"Yes, I want to find La Boule d'Or."

At that he raised his eyebrows and, lifting his hands, exclaimed,
"Monsieur, then, has not received any encouragement from the Cardinal?"

"A fig for the Cardinal," I cried irritably. "I am in need of some
supper, and a bed. You don't suppose I want to walk about the streets
all night."

"But it seems so strange! First it is the Palais Royal, and then La
Boule d'Or. However, it is none of my business. Monsieur knows his
own mind. Jacques," and he called to a boy standing just inside the
shop, "show monsieur to the Rue de Roi."

Jacques was a boy of twelve, lean, hungry-looking, and hard-featured,
but as sharp as a weasel. He piloted me through the crowds, turned
down alleys, shot through narrow courts, turning now to right now to
left, till my head began to swim.

"Has monsieur heard the news?" he asked. "They think at the shop that
I don't know, but I keep my ears open. There will be sport soon. They
are going to put the Cardinal in an iron cage, and Anne of Austria in a
convent. Then the people will rise and get their own. Oh, oh! it will
be fine sport. No more starving for Jacques then. I shall get a
pike--Antoine is making them by the score--and push my way into the
king's palace. Antoine says we shall have white bread to eat; white
bread, monsieur, but I don't think that can be true."

All the way he chattered thus, repeating scraps of information he had
picked up, and inventing a great deal besides. Much of it I understood
no more than if he had spoken in a foreign tongue, but I gathered that
stirring work was expected by the denizens of the low quarters of the
city.

"Faith," I thought to myself, "my poor mother would have little sleep
to-night if she could see me now, wandering through these dens of vice
and crime. Old Belloc's path to fortune does not seem easy to find."

Jacques suddenly brought me back to reality by exclaiming in his shrill
voice, "Here we are, monsieur! This is the Rue de Roi."

The information rather staggered me, but I thanked him, and drawing out
my slender purse, gave him a piece