was impotent to resent it. "Do not build too much on a
single blow, young gentleman," he said, shaking his head waggishly. "I
had fought a dozen times when I was your age. However, I understand
that you refuse to give me satisfaction?"

"In the mode you mention, certainly," I replied. "But--"

"Bah!" he exclaimed with a sneer, "business first and pleasure
afterwards! Bezers will obtain satisfaction in his own way, I promise
you that! And at his own time. And it will not be on unfledged
bantlings like you. But what is this for?" And he rudely kicked the
culverin which apparently he had not noticed before, "So! so!
understand," he continued, casting a sharp glance at one and another of
us. "You looked to be besieged! Why you, booby, there is the shoot of
your kitchen midden, twenty feet above the roof of old Fretis' store!
And open, I will be sworn! Do you think that I should have come this
way while there was a ladder in Caylus! Did you take the wolf for a
sheep?"

With that he turned on his heel, swaggering away in the full enjoyment
of his triumph. For a triumph it was. We stood stunned; ashamed to
look one another in the face. Of course the shoot was open. We
remembered now that it was, and we were so sorely mortified by his
knowledge and our folly, that I failed in my courtesy, and did not see
him to the gate, as I should have done. We paid for that later.

"He is the devil in person!" I exclaimed angrily, shaking my fist at
the House of the Wolf, as I strode up and down impatiently. "I hate
him worse!"

"So do I!" said Croisette, mildly. "But that he hates us is a matter
of more importance. At any rate we will close the shoot."

"Wait a moment!" I replied, as after another volley of complaints
directed at our visitor, the lad was moving off to see to it. "What is
going on down there?"

"Upon my word, I believe he is leaving us!" Croisette rejoined sharply.

For there was a noise of hoofs below us, clattering on the pavement.
Half-a-dozen horsemen were issuing from the House of the Wolf, the ring
of their bridles and the sound of their careless voices coming up to us
through the clear morning air Bezers' valet, whom we knew by sight, was
the last of them. He had a pair of great saddle-bags before him, and
at sight of these we uttered a glad exclamation. "He is going!" I
murmured, hardly able to believe my eyes. "He is going after all!"

"Wait!" Croisette answered drily.

But