ws of the opposite
buildings and made them look as if they were on fire. At last, obeying
another impulse, he suddenly crossed the Boulevard, as if to return
into Paris, leaving Montmartre, the cabarets, and Rovere's house behind
him. He walked briskly along, and ran against a man--a little man--whom
he had not noticed, who seemed to suddenly detach himself from the wall,
and who fell against his breast, hiccoughing and cursing in vicious
tones.

"Imbecile!"

The young man wished to push away the intoxicated man who, with hat over
his eyes, clung to him and kept repeating:

"The street--the street--is it not free--the street?"

Yes, it was certainly a drunken man. Not a man in a smock, but a little
fellow, a bourgeois, with hat askew and thick voice.

"I--I am not stopping you. The street is free--I tell you!"

"Well, if it is free, I want it!"

The voice was vigorous, but showed sudden anger, a strident tone, a
slight foreign accent, Spanish, perhaps.

The drunken man probably thought him insolent for, still hiccoughing, he
answered:

"Oh, you want it, do you? You want it? I want it! The king says 'we
wish!' don't you know?"

With another movement, he lost his equilibrium and half fell, his head
hanging over, and he clutched the man he held in a sudden embrace.

"It is mine also--the street--you know!"

With sudden violence, the man disembarrassed himself of this caressing
creature; he thrust aside his clinging arms with a movement so quick and
strong that the intoxicated man, this time, fell, his hat rolled into
the gutter, and he lay on the sidewalk.

But immediately, with a bound, he was on his feet, and as the man went
calmly on his way, he followed him, seized his coat and clutched him so
tightly that he could not proceed.

"Pardon;" he said, "you cannot go away like that!"

Then, as the light from a gas lamp fell on the little man's face, the
young man recognized his neighbor of the cabaret, who had said to him:

"See, that is how Rovere must look!"

At this moment, Dagonin and his comrade appeared on the scene and laid
vigorous hands on them both; the young man made a quick, instinctive
movement toward his right pocket, where, no doubt, he kept a revolver or
knife. Bernardet seized his wrist, he twisted it and said:

"Do nothing rash!"

The young man was very strong, but the huge Dagonin had Herculean biceps
and the other man did not lack muscles. Fright, moreover, seemed to
paralyze thi