第16章

"Very well; but will monsieur keep all the apartments?""I do not understand you.Why should I require less to-day than yesterday?""Because, monsieur, your lordship will permit me to say, yesterday I did not think proper, when you chose your lodging, to fix any price that might have made your lordship believe that I prejudged your resources; whilst to-day ----"

The unknown colored; the idea at once struck him that he was supposed to be poor, and was being insulted.

"Whilst to-day," replied he, coldly, "you do prejudge.""Monsieur, I am a well-meaning man, thank God! and simple hotelier as I am, there is in me the blood of a gentleman.

My father was a servant and officer of the late Marechal d'Ancre.God rest his soul!""I do not contest that point with you; I only wish to know, and that quickly, to what your questions tend?""You are too reasonable, monsieur, not to comprehend that our city is small, that the court is about to invade it, that the houses will be overflowing with inhabitants, and that lodgings will consequently obtain considerable prices."Again the unknown colored."Name your terms," said he.

1

"That is my business."

"Oh! certainly.I do not mean to turn monsieur out."The blood rushed to the temples of the unknown; he darted at poor Cropole, the descendant of one of the officers of the Marechal d'Ancre, a glance that would have crushed him down to beneath that famous chimney-slab, if Cropole had not been nailed to the spot by the question of his own proper interests.

"Do you desire me to go?" said he."Explain yourself -- but quickly.""Monsieur, monsieur, you do not understand me.It is very critical -- I know -- that which I am doing.I express myself badly, or perhaps, as monsieur is a foreigner, which I perceive by his accent ---- "In fact, the unknown spoke with that impetuosity which is the principal character of English accentuation, even among men who speak the French language with the neatest purity.

"As monsieur is a foreigner, I say, it is perhaps he who does not catch my exact meaning.I wish for monsieur to give up one or two of the apartments he occupies, which would diminish his expenses and ease my conscience.Indeed, it is hard to increase unreasonably the price of the chambers, when one has had the honor to let them at a reasonable price.""How much does the hire amount to since yesterday?""Monsieur, to one louis, with refreshments and the charge for the horse.""Very well, and that of to-day?"

"Ah! there is the difficulty.This is the day of the king's arrival; if the court comes to sleep here, the charge of the day is reckoned.From that it results that three chambers, at two louis each, makes six louis.Two louis, monsieur, are not much; but six louis make a great deal."The unknown, from red, as we have seen him, became very pale.

He drew from his pocket, with heroic bravery, a purse embroidered with a coat-of-arms, which he carefully concealed in the hollow of his hand.This purse was of a thinness, a flabbiness, a hollowness, which did not escape the eye of Cropole.

The unknown emptied the purse into his hand.It contained three double louis, which amounted to the six louis demanded by the host.

But it was seven that Cropole had required.