is a
pretty good stretch, I think, without reckoning that the night is so
dark, that one can hardly see two steps before one--and the street-lamps
not lighted because of the moon, which doesn't shine, after all!"

"Look out for a little door with a portico-drive on about twenty yards
beyond--and then stop close to the wall," answered a squeaking voice,
impatiently, and with an Italian accent.

"Here is a beggarly Dutchman, that will make me as savage as a bear?"
muttered the angry Jehu to himself. Then he added: "Thousand thunders! I
tell you that I can't see. How the devil can I find out your little
door?"

"Have you no sense? Follow the wall to the right, brush against it, and
you will easily find the little door. It is next to No. 50. If you do not
find it, you must be drunk," answered the Italian, with increased
bitterness.

The coachman only replied by swearing like a trooper, and whipping up his
jaded horses. Then, keeping close to the wall, he strained his eyes in
trying to read the numbers of the houses, by the aid of his carriage
lamps.

After some moments, the coach again stopped. "I have passed No. 50, and
here is a little door with a portico," said the coachman. "Is that the
one?"

"Yes," said the voice. "Now go forward some twenty yards, and then stop."

"Well! I never--"

"Then get down from your box, and give twice three knocks at the little
door we have just passed--you understand me?--twice three knocks."

"Is that all you give me to drink?" cried the exasperated coachman.

"When you have taken me back to the Faubourg Saint-Germain, where I live,
you shall have something handsome, if you do but manage matters well."

"Ha! now the Faubourg Saint-Germain! Only that little bit of distance!"
said the driver, with repressed rage. "And I who have winded my horses,
wanted to be on the boulevard by the time the play was out. Well, I'm
blowed!" Then, putting a good face on his bad luck, and consoling himself
with the thought of the promised drink-money, he resumed: "I am to give
twice three knocks at the little door?"

"Yes; three knocks first--then pause--then three other knocks. Do you
understand?"

"What next?"

"Tell the person who comes, that he is waited for, and bring him here to
the coach."

"The devil burn you!" said the coachman to himself, as he turned round on
the box, and whipped up his horses, adding: "this crusty old Dutchman has
something to do with Free-masons, or, perhaps, s