‘You can find out if you go and see,’ replied Maître Picard from behind his pipe.
‘Suppose it should be some wickedly-disposed students come again to vex us?’ suggested Blacquart, ‘and they were to bind me hand and foot. What would become of you without my protection?—Ugh!’
The last exclamation was provoked by a repetition of the knocking more violent than ever.
‘Go and open the door!’ roared Maître Picard, until he looked quite apoplectic. ‘No one is out to-night for their own amusement, depend upon it.’
With a great disinclination to stir away from the fireplace, the Gascon advanced towards the door. But, before he opened it, he inquired with much assumption of courage—
‘Who’s there?’
‘It is I, Philippe Glazer,’ said a well-known voice. ‘Are you dead or deaf, not to let me in? Open the door; quick!—quick!’
Reassured by the announcement, Blacquart soon unbarred the door, and Glazer hastened into the apartment. He was scarcely dressed, having evidently hurried from home in great precipitancy.
‘Maître Picard!’ he exclaimed, ‘you must come over with me directly to the Place Maubert. A terrible event has come about. M. Gaudin de Sainte-Croix——’
‘Well, what of him?’ asked the bourgeois, aroused from his half-lethargy of comfort and tobacco by Glazer’s haggard and anxious appearance.