The first feelings inspired in the breast of Maître Picard, as he heard this bold scheme unfolded, were those of fright; the next partook largely of revenge.
‘How many will there be?’ he asked.
‘Oh! a hundred,’ replied Blacquart. It was the ‘Gascon’ for twenty.
‘Bless me!’ said Maître Picard; ‘a great number—an awful number. You have told me to-night that you once fought a score yourself; but I don’t think you could face so many.’
‘I don’t think I could,’ said Blacquart. ‘I will try, if you please; only if my courage led me into any rash attack, I might be fatally wounded, and then what a scrape you would get into.’
‘True—true,’ said Maître Picard, wiping his face, and taking a long draught of wine; ‘and it is the same with me. My frame is rather round than large; but there is a great spirit at work within it, which I cannot always command. I will call together the Garde Bourgeois.’
‘Will not their assembling alarm the others,’ said Blacquart.
‘Not at all—not at all,’ returned the chapelier. ‘We will have them come by twos and threes, and hide in my shop.’
‘Excellent!’ said the Gascon.
‘Will you summons them, then?’ asked Maître Picard.