d of prey, and they were framed, like a vulture's, by
a bluish membrane devoid of lashes. His forehead, low and narrow, had
something menacing. Evidently, this man was under the yoke of some
single and unique thought. His sinewy arm did not belong to him.

He was followed by a man whom the imaginations of all folk, from those
who shiver in Greenland to those who sweat in the tropics, would paint
in the single phrase: _He was an unfortunate man_. From this phrase,
everybody will conceive him according to the special ideas of each
country. But who can best imagine his face--white and wrinkled, red at
the extremities, and his long beard. Who will see his lean and yellow
scarf, his greasy shirt-collar, his battered hat, his green frock coat,
his deplorable trousers, his dilapidated waistcoat, his imitation gold
pin, and battered shoes, the strings of which were plastered in mud? Who
will see all that but the Parisian? The unfortunate man of Paris is the
unfortunate man _in toto_, for he has still enough mirth to know the
extent of his misfortune. The mulatto was like an executioner of Louis
XI. leading a man to the gallows.

"Who has hunted us out these two extraordinary creatures?" said Henri.

"Faith! there is one of them who makes me shudder," replied Paul.

"Who are you--you fellow who look the most like a Christian of the two?"
said Henri, looking at the unfortunate man.

The mulatto stood with his eyes fixed upon the two young men, like a man
who understood nothing, and who sought no less to divine something from
the gestures and movements of the lips.

"I am a public scribe and interpreter; I live at the Palais de Justice,
and am named Poincet."

"Good!... and this one?" said Henri to Poincet, looking towards the
mulatto.

"I do not know; he only speaks a sort of Spanish _patois_, and he has
brought me here to make himself understood by you."

The mulatto drew from his pocket the letter which Henri had written to
Paquita and handed it to him. Henri threw it in the fire.

"Ah--so--the game is beginning," said Henri to himself. "Paul, leave us
alone for a moment."

"I translated this letter for him," went on the interpreter, when they
were alone. "When it was translated, he was in some place which I don't
remember. Then he came back to look for me, and promised me two _louis_
to fetch him here."

"What have you to say to me, nigger?" asked Henri.

"I did not translate _nigger_," said the interpreter, wai