at may be his manner," said Dubois.

"Exactly."

"What you tell me of his prompt payment pleases me."

"Have you come to ask for money? He said he expected some one to whom he
owed a hundred pistoles."

"No; on the contrary, I owe him fifty louis."

"Fifty louis! peste!" said the host, "what a pretty sum! Perhaps I was
mistaken, and he said receive, not pay. Are you the Chevalier Gaston de
Chanlay?"

"Does he expect the Chevalier Gaston de Chanlay?" said Dubois, with a
joy he could not conceal.

"He told me so," said the host. "Is that you?"

"No; I am not noble. I am called Moutonnet."

"Nobility is nothing," said the host. "One may be called Moutonnet and
be an honest man."

"Yes; Moutonnet, draper at St. Germain-en-Laye."

"And you have fifty louis for the captain?"

"Yes. In turning over some old accounts of my father's, I find he owed
fifty louis to Captain la Jonquiere's father; and I have had no peace
till, instead of the father, who is dead, I had found the son."

"Do you know there are not many debtors like you?"

"The Moutonnets are all the same, from father to son. When we are owed
anything we are pitiless. Listen. There is an honest fellow who owed
Moutonnet & Son one hundred and sixty francs; my grandfather put him in
prison, and there he has been for the three generations, and he has just
died there. I calculated that, during the thirty years he was there, he
cost us twelve thousand francs; but we maintained the principle. But I
beg your pardon for keeping you with all this nonsense; and here is a
new customer for you."

"Ah!" said the host, "it is Captain la Jonquiere himself. Captain,"
continued he, "some one is waiting for you."

The captain entered suspiciously--he had seen some strange, and, he
thought, sinister faces about.

Dubois saluted him politely.

La Jonquiere asked the host if the friend he had expected had arrived.

"No one but monsieur. However, you lose nothing by the exchange, since
one was to fetch away money, and the other brings it."

La Jonquiere, surprised, turned to Dubois, who repeated the same story
he had told to the host, and with such success that La Jonquiere,
calling for wine, asked Dubois to follow him into his room.

Dubois approached the window, and quietly tapped on it with his fingers.

"But shall I not be in the way in your room?" asked Dubois.

"Not at all, not at all--the view is pleasant--as we drink we can look
out and see the passers-by