f to take firm root in everybody's mind; and so, day after day,
people came to watch him at the West Gate, so as to be present when he
laid hands on any fugitive aristo who perhaps might be accompanied by
that mysterious Englishman.

"Bah!" he said to his trusted corporal, "Citoyen Grospierre was a fool!
Had it been me now, at that North Gate last week . . ."

Citoyen Bibot spat on the ground to express his contempt for his
comrade's stupidity.

"How did it happen, citoyen?" asked the corporal.

"Grospierre was at the gate, keeping good watch," began Bibot,
pompously, as the crowd closed in round him, listening eagerly to his
narrative. "We've all heard of this meddlesome Englishman, this accursed
Scarlet Pimpernel. He won't get through MY gate, MORBLEU! unless he
be the devil himself. But Grospierre was a fool. The market carts were
going through the gates; there was one laden with casks, and driven by
an old man, with a boy beside him. Grospierre was a bit drunk, but he
thought himself very clever; he looked into the casks--most of them, at
least--and saw they were empty, and let the cart go through."

A murmur of wrath and contempt went round the group of ill-clad
wretches, who crowded round Citoyen Bibot.

"Half an hour later," continued the sergeant, "up comes a captain of
the guard with a squad of some dozen soldiers with him. 'Has a car gone
through?' he asks of Grospierre, breathlessly. 'Yes,' says Grospierre,
'not half an hour ago.' 'And you have let them escape,' shouts the
captain furiously. 'You'll go to the guillotine for this, citoyen
sergeant! that cart held concealed the CI-DEVANT Duc de Chalis and all
his family!' 'What!' thunders Grospierre, aghast. 'Aye! and the driver
was none other than that cursed Englishman, the Scarlet Pimpernel.'"

A howl of execration greeted this tale. Citoyen Grospierre had paid for
his blunder on the guillotine, but what a fool! oh! what a fool!

Bibot was laughing so much at his own tale that it was some time before
he could continue.

"'After them, my men,' shouts the captain," he said after a while,
"'remember the reward; after them, they cannot have gone far!' And with
that he rushes through the gate followed by his dozen soldiers."

"But it was too late!" shouted the crowd, excitedly.

"They never got them!"

"Curse that Grospierre for his folly!"

"He deserved his fate!"

"Fancy not examining those casks properly!"

But these sallies seemed to amuse C