He rose as he had been taught that he must not sit in a superior's presence and to simple Ange everybody was a superior. In rising something fair and rosy attracted his attention at the window: it was Catherine come down at last, who was making cautionary signs to him.
"I do not want to be inquisitive, sir, but I should like to know whose book this is?" remarked the stranger pointing at the book without touching it as it was between Pitou's hands.
Pitou was going to say it belonged to Billet, but the girl motioned that he ought to lay claim to it himself. So he majestically responded:
"This book is mine."
The man in black had seen nothing but the book and its reader and heard but these words. But he suspiciously glanced behind: swift as a bird, Catherine had vanished.
"Your book?"
"Yes; do you want to read it—'Avidus legendi libri' or 'legendie historiae?'"
"Hello! you appear much above the condition your clothes beseem," said the stranger: "'Non dives vestitu sed ingenio'—— and it follows that I take you into custody."
"Me, in custody?" gasped Pitou at the summit of stupefaction.
At the order of the man in black, two sergeants of the Paris Police seemed to rise up out of the ground.