ho had jumped
through the window, and who seemed the most enterprising of the party,
left us at last and ran towards the stalls. The aspect of the two
serving-men, however, who rode up grinning, and made as if they would
ride him down, determined him to return; which he did, pale with fury,
as the last of the four horses clattered out, and after a puzzled look
round trotted off at its leisure into the forest.

On this, the man grew more violent, as I have remarked frightened men
do; so that at last the stranger condescended to notice him.

'My good sir,' he said coolly, looking at him through the window as if
he had not seen him before, 'you annoy me. What is the matter?'

The fellow retorted with a vast amount of bluster, asking what the devil
we meant by turning out his horses.

'Only to give you and the gentlemen with you a little exercise,' my
companion answered, with grim humour, and in a severe tone strange in
one so young--'than which nothing is more wholesome after a full meal.
That, and a lesson in good manners. Maignan,' he continued, raising
his voice, 'if this person has anything more to say, answer him. He is
nearer your degree than mine.'

And leaving the man to slink away like a whipped dog--for the mean are
ever the first to cringe--my friend turned from the window. Meeting my
eyes as he went back to his seat, he laughed. 'Well,' he said, 'what do
you think?'

'That the ass in the lion's skin is very well till it meets the lion,' I
answered.

He laughed again, and seemed pleased, as I doubt not he was. 'Pooh,
pooh!' he said. 'It passed the time, and I think I am quits with my
gentlemen now. But I must be riding. Possibly our roads may lie for a
while in the same direction, sir?' And he looked at me irresolutely.

I answered cautiously that I was going to the town of Rosny.

'You are not from Paris?' he continued, still looking at me.

'No,' I answered. 'I am from the south.'

'From Blois, perhaps?'

I nodded.

'Ah!' he said, making no comment, which somewhat surprised me, all men
at this time desiring news, and looking to Blois for it. 'I am riding
towards Rosny also. Let us be going.'

But I noticed that as we got to horse, the man he called Maignan holding
his stirrup with much formality, he turned and looked at me more than
once with an expression in his eye which I could not interpret; so
that, being in an enemy's country, where curiosity was a thing to be
deprecated, I began to fee