wdered, was tied in a queue
behind. The little gentleman's hand was as thin and fine as a lady's,
his shoulders were narrow and slightly stooped, his eye was eloquent and
benign. His dress was amazingly neat, but showed constant brushing and
signs of the friendly repairing needle.

The whole impression was that of a man whom a whiff of wind would blow
away; with the body of an ascetic and the simplicity of a child.
The face had some particular sort of wisdom, difficult to define and
impossible to imitate. He held in his hand a tiny cane of the sort
carried at the court of Louis Quinze. Louis Capet himself had given it
to him; and you might have had the life of the little gentleman, but not
this cane with the tiny golden bust of his unhappy monarch.

He stood on the steps of the prison and looked serenely on the
muttering, excited crowd.

"I fear there is a mistake," said he, coughing a little into his
fingers. "You do not seek me. I--I have no claim upon your kindness; I
am only the Chevalier Orvilliers du Champsavoys de Beaumanoir."

For a moment the mob had been stayed in amazement by this small, rare
creature stepping from the doorway, like a porcelain coloured figure
from some dusky wood in a painting by Claude. In the instant's pause the
Chevalier Orvilliers du Champsavoys de Beaumanoir took from his pocket
a timepiece and glanced at it, then looked over the heads of the crowd
towards the hooded sun, which now, a little, was showing its face again.

"It was due at eight, less seven minutes," said he; "clear sun again was
set for ten minutes past. It is now upon the stroke of the hour."

He seemed in no way concerned with the swaying crowd before
him--undoubtedly they wanted naught of him, and therefore he did
not take their presence seriously; but, of an inquiring mind, he was
absorbed in the eclipse.

"He's a French sorcerer! He has the evil eye! Away with him to the sea!"
shouted the fanatical preacher from the Pompe des Brigands.

"It's a witch turned into a man!" cried a drunken woman from her window.
"Give him the wheel of fire at the blacksmith's forge."

"That's it! Gad'rabotin--the wheel of fire'll turn him back to a hag
again!"

The little gentleman protested, but they seized him and dragged him
from the steps. Tossed like a ball, so light was he, he grasped the
gold-headed cane as one might cling to life, and declared that he was
no witch, but a poor French exile, arrested the night before for