"You expected me, captain! and what induced you to do so?"
"Events, chevalier; events."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that you thought you could make open war, and consequently put poor Captain Roquefinette aside, as a bandit, who is good for nothing but a nocturnal blow at a street corner, or in a wood; and now Dubois knows all; the parliament, on whom we thought we might count, have failed us, and has said yes, instead of no. Now we come back to the captain. My dear captain here! my good captain there! Is not this exactly as it has happened, chevalier? Well, here is the captain, what do you want of him? Speak."
"Really, my dear captain," said D'Harmental, not knowing exactly how to take this speech, "there is some truth in what you say. Only you are mistaken if you think we had forgotten you. If our plan had succeeded, you would have had proof that my memory was better, and I should have come to offer you my credit, as I now come to ask your assistance."
"Hum!" said the captain; "for the last three days, since I have inhabited this new apartment, I have made many reflections on the vanity of human things, and have more than once felt inclined to retire altogether from these affairs, or—if I did undertake one—to take care that it should be sufficiently brilliant to insure my future."
"What I come to propose to you is just the thing. Without preamble, it is—"
"What?" asked the captain, after waiting two or three minutes in vain for the end of the speech.
"What did you think, chevalier?"