"Why may I not be Pythagoras?"
"Pythagoras," prompted Andrea.
"I do not deny that, but he was not at Philipsburg; or, at any rate, I did not see him there."
"But you saw Viscount Jean Barreaux, one of the Black Horse Musketeers?"
"Rather; the musketeers and the light cavalry took turns in guarding the trenches."
"The day after the Richelieu duel, Barreaux and you were in the trenches when he asked you for a pinch of snuff, which you offered in a gold box, ornamented with the portrait of a belle, but in the act a cannon ball hit him in the throat, as happened the Duke of Berwick aforetimes, and carried away his head."
"Gad! just so! poor Barreaux!"
"This proves that we were acquainted there, for I am Barreaux," said the foreigner.
The host shrank back in fright or stupefaction.
"This is magic," he gasped; "you would have been burnt at the stake a hundred years ago, my dear guest. I seem to smell brimstone!"