ariniere has been making peace with Monsieur le General
Ratoneau? It was a difficult matter, I bet! Monsieur has been
successful?"

Urbain looked at the man steadily. He was not easily made angry.

"Who are you, my friend? and what do you mean?" he said.

"I am Simon, the police agent, monsieur. The affair rather interested
me. I was there."

"What affair?"

"Your son's affair with the General. That droll adventure of the cattle
in the lane--your cattle, monsieur, and it was your son's fault that the
General was thrown. Monsieur heard of it, surely?"

"You are mistaken," Monsieur Urbain replied quietly. "It was an
accident; it was not my son's fault. Nobody has ever thought of it or
mentioned it since. It was nothing."

"General Ratoneau did not think it nothing. All we who were there, we
saw the droll side of it, but he did not. He swore he would have his
revenge on Monsieur Angelot, as they call him. He has not forgotten it,
monsieur. Only last night, his servant told me, when he came back from
dining at Lancilly, he was swearing about it again."

"Let him swear!" said Urbain, under his breath.

Then his eyes dwelt a moment on Simon, who looked the very incarnation
of malice and mischief, and he smiled benignly.

"Merci, Monsieur Simon," he said. "We are fortunate in having you to
watch over us. But do not let this anxiety trouble you. I have just been
spending some time with General Ratoneau, as you appear to know. We are
the best of friends, and if my son irritated him the other day, I think
he has forgotten it."

"So much the better," grinned Simon, "for Monsieur le General would not
be a pleasant enemy." Then, as Urbain was walking on, he detained him.
"Everybody must respect Monsieur Urbain de la Mariniere," he said. "He
has a difficult position. If certain eyes were not wilfully shut,
serious things might happen in his family. And we sometimes ask
ourselves, we of the police, whether closed eyes at headquarters ought
to mean a silent tongue all round. How does it strike you, monsieur?"

Urbain hesitated a moment. He had done a certain amount of bribery in
his day, for the sake of those he loved, but his native good sense and
obstinacy alike arose against being blackmailed by a police spy, a
subordinate official at best. The fellow could not do Joseph much harm,
he thought, the Prefect being friendly, and the General likely to be a
connection. And Joseph must in the future be loyal, as the General s